Chanel No 19 Eau de Parfum

Chanel No. 19 was created by Henri Robert and released in 1970, named for Gabrielle Chanel's birth date of the 19th of August. Where No. 5 had been built on abstraction and aldehydic shimmer — a fragrance for the idea of a woman — No. 19 was built on something sharper, more assertive, more personal. It was, within the context of Chanel's output, an unusual document: the smell of a specific character rather than a universal aspiration.

The composition is a green chypre of considerable force. Galbanum opens with a cutting, almost abrasive freshness — a smell that is simultaneously green and resinous, vegetal and synthetic — before iris, rose, and ylang-ylang build a floral heart that is cool and powdery rather than warm. The base of vetiver, oakmoss, cedarwood, and civet creates the classic chypre structure, but the galbanum's persistence through the entire development keeps the fragrance from settling into conventional elegance. It remains slightly uncomfortable, in the best sense, throughout.

No. 19 arrived at a particular moment in feminine perfumery — a time when the women who wore fragrance were beginning to ask whether fragrance should express independence as readily as it expressed femininity — and it answered that question before it was widely being asked. The green chypre genre it exemplified, already established by Germaine Cellier's Vent Vert and Balmain's Ivoire, found in No. 19 its most authoritative expression. Among perfumers and serious collectors, it remains one of the most admired compositions in the Chanel archive.