5 Business Insights from a True 20th Century Pioneer.

Think of luxury.

Now think of perfumes.

Chances are that Chanel No.5 would have crossed your mind.

The French fashion designer, Gabrielle Bonheur ‘Coco’ Chanel gained worldwide fame not only for her couture, but her signature scent that changed the way women saw and wore perfume.

Back then the rules were different.

Perfume represented an important part of a woman’s identity.

Coco Chanel understood and broke these rules to gain worldwide fame and admiration as a pioneering 20th century fashion designer.

Some of these rules Coco Chanel understood was:

The best time to start is when nobody is doing it.

In the early 20th century, perfume was not something offered by fashion houses.

Also, perfumes for women were categorised into two groups.

• Scents created for ‘respectable women’ – high society types featuring simple flowery scents.
• The scents created for other women – courtesans and sex workers were made with deeper and more powerful musky scents.

By forging her signature scent at a time no other fashion house was, Coco Chanel realised that her name was going beyond everything she knew.

She was on the verge of creating her very own signature scent and ended up doing something even more unorthodox.

You must discover what’s important to your customers.

As if chartering her own fragrance wasn’t pioneering enough, Coco did the unthinkable.

She decided that her fragrance would target not one, but BOTH groups of women.

A scent that both high society women and those in the lower rungs of society can and would come to love.

Her rational was simple, women and women. Simply find out what’s important to them.

As a women and female entrepreneur, she addressed the one important need the women around her had.

Which was the need to feel desirable.

Her vision was that a Chanel signature fragrance would make the woman wearing it feel desirable.

Trust that others can understand your vision.

Coco Chanel was many things, but she was no perfume manufacturer.

Thus, she outsourced her vision to Ernest Beaux in 1920, who was tasked with the not so simple job of creating a scent that made all women feel desired.

Beaux brought something to the table that Chanel could not. He was a gifted and experienced perfumer who understood the chemistry which gave perfumes their unique scents.

He understood the psychology of perfumes and how certain fragrances evoked certain emotions.

More famously, he understood the function of aldehydes which sharpened the floral notes and made fragrances last longer.

Without Ernest Beaux, these would be no Chanel No. 5.

Every business vision needs an Ernest Beaux.

A unique vision doesn’t have to remain with the founder.

Very often in business, you must outsource expertise and trust that your vision can be appreciated and executed by the right people. ?

Put your personality in your brand,

After months of experimenting with different samples, scents and mixtures, Coco Chanel took a whiff of sample no. 5.

The number five was already considered to be her lucky number as she even chose to launch her new collections on the fifth of every month.

Using her reverence for the number as well as her own name for the fragrance as opposed to a flowery title, Chanel No. 5 was introduced to the world and remains one of the most famous perfumes created.

For Coco Chanel, she made a perfume, named by her, for women to smell like women.

That perfume needed to carry her name because it was her.

The brand, the perfume, the success, all of it, was all hers.

Protect your empire.

Coco Chanel closed her business during World War 2 but reopened in 1954 with the help of the Wertheimer family.

While they did have the infrastructure to sell her perfume on a large scale, because of political and personal matters they acquired the rights to the Chanel No. 5 recipe, her brand and designs.

While Coco was still able to renegotiate her deal with them and eventually received 2% royalty for every perfume sold, her empire had gone squarely to the Wertheimer family.

Upon her death in 1971, the Chanel empire was fully handed over to the Wertheimers who continue to manage it to this day.

The story of Coco Chanel warns that your business legacy must always be protected. Even if you bring investors and shareholders on board, never lose your comfort.

Whether it’s a local, Caribbean business or a worldwide hit like the House of Chanel, humans aren't always noble or ethical.

As such, trust and live well but never underestimate the influence of wealth and power over the human conscience.

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