GARDEN VISIT: Chanel positioned sandalwood below the highlight for this installment of the annual Jardins, Jardin backyard occasion, which takes place this 12 months within the Villa Windsor’s park in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne.
By way of Sunday, folks can expertise an immersive go to, which is each an olfactory and botanical journey that spans 3,230 sq. toes, and permits guests to see how the Santalum austrocaledonicum tree is morphed right into a fragrance ingredient.
Sandalwood has been used for hundreds of years for olfactory, medicinal and non secular functions, similar to throughout prehistoric ceremonies and for historic Egyptian embalming.
There are 16 sandalwood species on the planet, however solely three are used for perfume-making. At Jardins, Jardin, Chanel recreated the ambiance of Maré Island, which is discovered within the archipelago of New Caledonia, and the place the home solely sources its sandalwood from two native companions.
Chanel‘s set up at Jardins, Jardin.
Photograph by Jullette Valtiendas / Courtesy of Chanel
Every time a tree is minimize there, Chanel places 30 extra within the floor and surrounds them with different vegetation, similar to avocado bushes. As much as 250 sandalwood bushes are minimize down yearly, and Chanel has offset that by sowing 75,000 vegetation between 2009 and 2015.
At Jardins, Jardin, a serpentine path leads guests previous sandalwood and different vegetation with lush foliage grown on Maré Island, to the place there’s dried wooden and items of heartwood. Inside a construction, guests can see varied steps of the extraction course of. First, there are bowls of floor Maré sandalwood heartwood, then sandalwood cuttings and the liquid extract of sandalwood, which supplies a creamy, voluptuous scent. Chanel manages the entire worth chain, from tree to bottle of completed perfume.
Sandalwood is an ingredient that’s utilized in quite a few Chanel perfumes, together with No.5, Bleu de Chanel, Bois des Îles, Égoïste and Attract Eau de Parfum. These could be skilled in a room subsequent door.
A quote from Olivier Polge, Chanel’s in-house perfumer-creator — “I like the concept fragrance, so immaterial and impalpable, comes from one thing concrete, actual and really artisanal, like earth, wooden, flowers” — adorns a wall of the set up.
Polge himself gave a masterclass on sandalwood on web site as a part of a collection of talks. Attendees may pattern the wooden’s notes in lots of types, together with an amber sandalwood accord and a spicy sandalwood accord.
