When legend actress Marilyn Monroe adopted Chanel N°5, little did she know Mademoiselle Chanel said of the bold fragrance in 1921: “I want a woman’s fragrance that smells like a woman.”

Back then, the legend that the passionate Monroe wore nothing to bed but a few drops of Chanel N°5 rocked the world. Her candid declaration of love for the quintessential feminine fragrance was there in black and white, in an article published in 1952 that accompanied her first cover of Life magazine: “Marilyn, what do you wear to bed? So I said I only wear Chanel N°5.”

Today, that legend has become a reality. While perusing the star’s archives, Chanel has discovered an unreleased recording capturing the spontaneous actress’s original words.

In 1960, Georges Belmont, editor-in-chief of Marie-Claire, interviewed the star of the film Let’s Make Love by Georges Cukor. On the spur of the moment, Monroe confirmed the sincerity of her love for N°5:

“You know, they ask me questions. Just an example: ‘What do you wear to bed ? A pyjama top? Pyjama bottoms? A nightgown?’ So I said: ‘Chanel N°5, because it’s the truth… and yet, I don’t want to say nude. But it’s the truth.’”

With this declaration, and the photo by Ed Feingersh showing Monroe with a bottle of N°5 nestled in her décolleté, she definitively established N°5 as the fragrance of timeless femininity.

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