Did you know that the scent of Chanel No. 5 was created by a perfumer from Russia?

Ernest Beaux, a descendant of French émigrés in Russia, became after the Revolution a Russian émigré in France. From the end of the nineteenth century Ernest Beaux worked at the venerable perfumery of Alphonse Rallet in Moscow, on Vyatskaya Street. In 1907 he became technical director of the Rallet factory, purveyor to the court of His Imperial Majesty.

After the Revolution Rallet, by then the creator of many celebrated scents, found himself in France, where in 1921 Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich introduced him to Coco Chanel. Almost at once Chanel proposed that Rallet create a fragrance for her house, but the Russian perfumer replied with ready-made compositions numbered 1 to 5 and 20 to 24, and Coco chose number 5. She decided not to change the name of the composition that had pleased her, reckoning that it might bring luck. And so it did.