Chanel’s Bleu de Chanel enters a new era with Jacob Elordi
By Mary Cleary
When Chanel launched Bleu de Chanel in 2010, it marked a major turning point for the brand and masculine fragrances more widely.
It was Chanel’s first male scent in over twenty years (its previous launch was Égoïste in 1990) and, in a market dominated by fresh, clean colognes (think Acqua di Parma’s Colonia or Issey Mikaye’s L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme), Bleu de Chanel proposed a new approach to the genre with a scent that was still fresh and clean, but enriched by the addition of wood and amber notes.
Behind the scenes of the new Bleu de Chanel campaign starring Jacob Elordi
In short, its aim was to set a new paradigm for what defines ‘masculinity’ in a fragrance, and the trajectory of the market in the past 16 years since its launch has proven it's done just that. Bleu de Chanel’s top notes of grapefruit and lemon maintain that aforementioned freshness, but its signature blend of New Caledonian sandalwood with amber, cedar, patchouli, and labdanum gives it the rich, warm quality that has become the norm in male scents since.
Last year, it took that legacy even further by launching Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif, an even richer and denser interpretation of the original fragrance that turned up the dial on its amber and leathery notes.
In keeping with its aim to bottle ‘modern masculinity’ and ‘a spirit that favours individuality over convention,’ the brand has enlisted two well-known male actors, the late Gaspard Ulliel and Timothée Chalamet, each embodying their own unique take on what it means to be a leading man in Hollywood today. For its latest campaign, Chanel has carried on the tradition by enlisting Australian actor Jacob Elordi to be the new face of Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif. Written and directed by five-time Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón, the short film adopts the tropes of action films to create a playful, fast-paced and acrobatics-fuelled approach to a fragrance campaign.
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Behind the scenes of the new Bleu de Chanel campaign starring Jacob Elordi
Mary Cleary is a writer based in London and New York. Previously beauty & grooming editor at Wallpaper*, she is now a contributing editor, alongside writing for various publications on all aspects of culture.
This article was originally published by Wallpaper*.