PARIS — Chanel’s latest exhibition plays along with your senses.

Inside Chanel’s Latest Fragrance Exhibit in Paris Dedicated to the brand’s fragrances, it’s a circus of scent and couture, complete with a ringmaster at the doorway to Paris’ Grand Palais Éphémère museum and magicians doing card tricks.

“Le Grand Numéro de Chanel,” which opens to the general public Thursday, is a tribute to the home’s most famous fragrance, in addition to its newer library of scents, through a maze of rooms. The exhibit is centered around a carousel draped with twinkling lights, swinging stars,

iconic camellia blooms and double Cs. Dancers make their moves around a circular stage partnered with giant bottles of perfume, with curtains that pull back to disclose hidden passageways.

The grandest variety of all, the legendary Chanel No.5, has essentially the most space dedicated to its history and legacy. Entering a darkened hallway, visitors emerge under an unlimited starry sky display that glimmers with the Chanel logo. To the side, guests can walk through the history of the fragrance, from its conception and development through the years.

Original glass bottles are on display, as are various iterations of the fragrance in powder, perfume and lipstick forms, in addition to Chanel’s early experiments with packaging in nickel and chrome, shown with a few of Gabrielle Chanel’s monochrome clothing designs of the time.

Visitors come to grasp her instinctive vision for creating not only a latest, more streamlined silhouette for ladies, but what was the precursor to an immersive lifestyle brand.

Artisans reveal the strategy of baudruchage, the hand-tied and wax sealing technique used on the made-to-order Parfum Grand Extrait, which retails for $3,500. Only nine artisans have mastered the technique, of which six are still practicing and two shall be readily available every day through the exhibit’s run.

Photos of Chanel with luminaries including Igor Stravinsky and her lover, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, tell her personal story, while a commemorative portrait sketched by Karl Lagerfeld is on display.

Chanel was famously superstitious, and named the home’s signature fragrance No.5 because five was her lucky number. This story is told in an immersive virtual reality exhibit, as Chanel’s avatar walks through the rooms of the designer’s apartment discussing her decision process

with perfumer Ernest Beaux and flipping tarot cards. When Chanel arrives at her alternative, in-person attendants spritz fragrance within the air — an upscale smell-o-vision, with far more expensive glasses.

One other room is a masterclass in marketing, and walks visitors through many years of Chanel ads and replays a few of the brand’s most famous commercials. Here some couture is on display, resembling Nicole Kidman’s costumes from the Baz Luhrman-directed short film and others worn by Carole Bouquet and Marion Cotillard.

A gallery is devoted to art that uses Chanel’s logo, most famously Andy Warhol’s No.5 paintings, alongside works from longtime collaborator Salvador Dalí and more contemporary artists including Ma Jun,

Laurie Simmons, Burton Morris and Chantel Stoman, amongst others. The pieces are from the brand’s private collection, normally housed in Paris and Latest York, and united here on display for the primary time.

Moving into a dark room, visitors are invited to lie down on a couch old-school analyst style, while they’re quizzed about personality and scent preferences. The result’s a profile that goals to pair guests with certainly one of the 18 fragrances within the Les Exclusifs line. Experts from the fragrance development team function consultants.

The exhibition also takes guests through newer scents. A room dedicated to Likelihood brings visitors backstage at a dance performance, with ballerinas prepping in tulle skirts and colourful costumes, while Chanel official makeup artists can be found to create a glance. Through one other door,

 

dancers perform onstage at a mini-casino, complete with roulette, spin-the-wheel and a game of dice. Guests are gifted a handful of chips to try their luck, while winners get a prize on the door.

The Coco Mademoiselle display is ready up as a control room, with lipstick case dials and the more sporty of Chanel’s collections on offer: a basketball, skateboard, headphones, skis, helmets, weights and even a megaphone — all stamped with double Cs.

The Bleu de Chanel room shows a cityscape that lights up with musical notes, complete with a slinky bar on the back.

Other rooms detail the fragrance ingredients and their collection methods, resembling hand-harvesting buds from Grasse, France, and include scent pods where guests can have an olfactory experience of various notes and olfactive blends.

Visitors exit through the gift shop, which incorporates a range of unique and sure-to-be-coveted items, including Chanel chess sets, playing and tarot cards, puzzles and an embroidery kit.

The exhibit, which runs through Jan. 9, took greater than a yr to finish. Admission is free, but have to be booked ahead on the exhibit’s website at grand-numero.chanel.com.