Gabrielle Chanel Love for Perfume and La Pausa in the French Riviera

Gabrielle Chanel is well-known for her love of the French Riviera! She spent a great part of her life here and she left many marks on this corner of the world.  

Grasse, where the perfume Chanel N 5 was born

One of the main features of her personality was linked to perfume. Obviously, Grasse was the place to be! In 1921, she made a journey to Grasse and met Ernest Beaux, the perfumer known for his talent. She asked him to make her a feminine fragrance so he showed her a serious of samples numbered from 1 to 5. Coco Chanel picked number 5 and from here the name of the most sold perfume in France, for so many years.

Bar sur Loup and its bitter orange trees used for Chanel perfume

Still related to perfume, the scent of bitter orange is a trademark for this region, thanks to Chanel. She helped reintroduce the bitter orange trees in the land of Bar sur Loup. The flowers of this tree produce Neroli essence, an ingredient used in the perfume Chanel N 5.

Villa La Pausa in Roquebrune Cap Martin

Gabrielle Chanel always looked for places to stay in the French Riviera. One of them was the villa La Pausa, in Roquebrune Cap Martin where she lived for almost twenty-five years. She sold it in 1954 to the American author, Emery Reves.

The property is surrounded by a four hectare park with a landscaped garden planted with orange trees, olive trees, mimosas, irises, jasmine and Jacaranda trees. The stairwell and patio are inspired by the Cistercian Abbey of Aubazine where Chanel grew up in the orphanage and where she learned the craft of a seamstress.

She invited many celebrities at her villa: artists, musicians, writers and politicians like the Duke of Westminster, Misia Sert, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dali. Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, and Somerset Maugham were among the regular visitors.

Although in fairly poor condition, the villa was listed for sale in June 2013 at over $ 50 million. In 2015, it was bought by Chanel company in order to use it as a channel of showing Chanel's world.

Coco Chanel Love of Her Life

French Riviera was a place of glamour and feats for Coco Chanel. But, also, it was the place where she lost the love of her life in a car accident in Puget-sur-Argens. The Englishman entrepreneur, Arthur Edward Capel, nicknamed Boy Capel, as designer's love of her life. She shared more than ten years with him and she would never recover after his loss.

Author Andra Oprea