Pour Monsieur Chanel, a timeless classic. Having become the embodiment of luxury and beauty, the Chanel house needs no introduction. Mademoiselle revolutionized the world of fashion and beauty.
Pour Monsieur: the charm of a timeless classic
After magnificent successes in perfumery, including N°5, Coco Chanel turned her attention, along with her talented perfumer Henri Robert, to masculine fragrances. Together they created Pour Monsieur in 1955 to give shape to elegant, seductive scents at a time when all perfumes were above all aromatic. Mademoiselle Chanel could not create an ordinary men's perfume, of course!
Pour Monsieur, the first men's perfume signed by Coco Chanel
In 1954, Ernest Beaux, the famous Russian perfumer who created N°5, handed over his position as nose at the fine Chanel house to Henri Robert. Under the latter's impetus, and after the long break in perfumed creations caused by the Second World War, Coco Chanel took a close interest in masculine fragrances.
Indeed, in a way quite similar to women at the time Mademoiselle Coco arrived on the fashion scene in the 1920s, men were offered perfumes always built around the same accords. Cologne accords have, since their arrival on the market, primarily with Muelhens and 4711 Original Eau de Cologne, formed the basis of the vast majority of men's perfumes. Yet this overlooks the fact that men are no longer solely concerned with the appearance of cleanliness and hygiene, but also with the desire to seduce with distinctive scents, just like women.
To create Pour Monsieur, Coco Chanel drew inspiration from the three men of her life: Boy Capel, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, and the Duke of Westminster. Three men of natural and discreet elegance, without artifice, who cultivated the art of inner distinction. Men of heart and spirit, according to Chanel. Pour Monsieur would thus be the essence of these elegant and distinguished men.
Offering men more than smelling good: seduction through perfume!
True to the idea that what is inside matters more than what is outside, Mademoiselle Coco did not burden herself with incongruous details when creating her first men's bottle. The Pour Monsieur bottle retained the straight, clean lines of Chanel perfumes while presenting the ultimate sophistication of a flannel cap, a delicate nod to the elegance of its fragrance.
As for the juice of Pour Monsieur, it clearly belongs to the citrus chypre olfactory family. Its tangy top notes of lemon and orange are blended with powerfully aromatic verbena and lavender, better to merge into the spicy sweetness of petitgrain. The heart reveals itself under rich Tunisian neroli, spiced to perfection with coriander, ginger, and cardamom. The base notes take the typical form of the finest chypre compositions thanks to notes of oakmoss, cedar, vetiver, and the seductive, intoxicating patchouli.
Pour Monsieur evokes for everyone the eternal charm of a refined simplicity that has withstood eras and time to continue spreading, as its advertisement once said, a very personal touch to these gentlemen. Although its reformulation is sometimes disputed, Pour Monsieur remains a great classic of modern men's perfumes.