Chanel Brings An Interactive Experience And Sense Of Optimism To LA For The Launch Of Chance Eau Splendide

Forbes

02-05-2025

Inside the Chanel Chance Eau Splendide experience at The Grove in LA
Chanel
When Chanel In-House Perfumer-Creator Olivier Polge is creating a perfume, it all comes down to one thing: The scent itself. That's the case for his latest, Chanel Chance Eau Splendide, the fifth scent in the Chanel Chance family. 'My work is not visual,' Polge says. 'The sense of scent is tricky because it's very strong and at the same time it has the weakness of being influenced by the rest. Scent has to go beyond one person or one profile.'
But in the age of social media, people want to experience perfume beyond the olfactive. That's the concept of the new special event at The Grove in Los Angeles, open now through May 18, that celebrates the new Chance Eau Splendide and brings the fragrance to life in different ways beyond the scent. Free and open to the public, guests can explore many elements of the perfume.
Chanel Chance Eau Splendide
Chanel
'Fragrance is all about emotions,' says Emilie de Tramasure, General Manager of Fragrance and Beauty at Chanel. 'Everybody brings their own emotions to the story, so it's important to give some elements you can follow, a way to experience something where you bring your own expression and your look, but at the same time feel like you're guided in a way to experiment. It's about all senses together—olfactive is one, but you have a very strong visual and communication also. We wanted to express the color that is so youthful and playful. The concept was about playing with all senses, so that whenever you go through it, it is more than just smelling, but evokes different facets. It's like a maze—you bring people, you give them clues, but at the same time you create your own emotional moments.'
The experience at The Grove includes a maze activity, a Chance fortune teller, an opportunity to sniff all five Chance fragrances and plenty of photo ops, including a photo booth and life-sized bottle of Chance Eau Splendide. Guests can even don a pair of violet headphones that match the juice to listen to the earworm 'A Little More,' the song composed for the campaign by Belgian pop star Angéle, who is its face. 'It's something new, with Angéle doing this interpretation of the scent, and she's super excited to be part of that story, and she's bringing a little piece that is so special with the music,' de Tramasure says. As part of the multi-sensory experience, it was important to include music too.
The Chanel Chance Eau Splendide special experience at The Grove in LA
Chanel
The experience at The Grove is just like Chance eau Splendide itself—fun, flirty, bright and optimistic. Light and luminous, the scent opens with a raspberry accord that floats over the floral heart of rose geranium, mingling with cedar, white musk and iris. Typically, when Polge creates a scent, he creates it from the bottom up. But with Chance Eau Splendide, it was the opposite. When he started on its creation journey, he didn't know initially that he wanted to make a fruity floral. 'When you build a perfume, you build it from the bottom to the top,' he says. 'Here I had the feeling and the intuition that I did it reverse. I saw that this accord of raspberry could take more room and even be the backbone of the scent.'
Chance eau Splendide pays homage to the iterations of Chance that have preceded it while simultaneously being original and unique. The Chance collection have become modern classics. 'When you think about Chance, now it's five different perfumes, five different formulas, but they have in common very fresh and catchy top notes,' Polge says. 'When I was thinking about Chance eau Splendide, I had to find this note that would grasp your attention right away. I ended up building this raspberry accord, which I found interesting, because behind this nice red fruit there are certain undertones of flowers like violet and rose, and so that is the start of a perfume. We always speak about top, middle, bottom [notes], but at the end of the day, that all blends and everything has an effect. Each raw material has an effect on the other and the idea behind the scent was always to bring notes that would not darken the brightness of the scent. Among those notes, the raspberry ended up to be the most important in Chance Eau Splendide.'
The Chanel Chance family
Chanel
The geranium in Chance Eau Splendide is partly grown in the Chanel fields in Grasse. 'For Chanel, we create and manufacture all our perfumes,' Polge says. 'We have quite a traditional way to handle certain raw materials; we make a mix of different origin, with a very specific olfactive profile.' To round out the geranium used in the perfume, they sourced from other places as well. 'We start with the olfactive aspect,' Polge says. 'If it doesn't smell good, we are not interested. We look for a very specific olfactive profile, and then we work to make it fulfill our policies of organic farming and working conditions.'
Chance Eau Splendide was about two years in the making. Though the violet hue was chosen after the scent was completed, it captures what's inside the bottle perfectly. Polge believes that 'since scent is not visual, it expresses something of your personality.' It also fits in perfectly with the rest of the Chance family, which are all pretty pastels. 'If you make the parallel with the visual aspects, they all have something very colorful,' Polge says. 'They are impactful. There is a freshness. Purple fits well, don't you think? There is a little depth to it that I like. This is why color is very important, because it puts a filter on what you will expect it to smell like. And if it's well conceived, the product will have a stronger impact.'
A Chanel Chance Eau Splendide carousel at the opening of the special experience at The Grove in LA
Chanel
A study in juxtapositions, Chanel Chance Eau Splendide is unique yet also has mass appeal. 'What we like about this fragrance is that you can interpret it in so many different ways, which is a part of the playfulness of Chance as well,' de Tramasure says. 'Olivier keeps the spirit, but brings something new from an olfactive story. This one brings these fresh fruity notes, still true to the spirit of Chance, with these woody notes that makes it new and bold, but also so easy to wear for anyone.'
To celebrate the launch of Chance Eau Splendide and the opening of the experience at The Grove, a dinner was held in Polge's honor at The Beverly Hills Hotel, attending by luminaries and friends of the house. Choosing LA was not by chance. 'LA felt like the perfect location for many reasons,' de Tramasure says. 'First of all, there is something in the spirit of Chance—the concept itself is about seizing opportunities and there is no better place than LA to express that. The second element is the entertainment. People here are expecting that, and we wanted something that would be not just a pop-up and a commercial presence, that is really entertaining, fun and full of surprises. We knew LA would be receptive to that concept of excitement and playfulness, which is part of Chance, but also part of the LA spirit. Also, when we discussed the location, it was around the time of the wildfires, and we wanted to be part of the revival. We felt that's the right place to be at that time, and Chance is a perfect expression. We want to bring optimism to the city.'