France
www.chanel.com

Sales: $3.8 billion

Key Personnel: Alain Wertheimer and Gerard Wertheimer, co-owners; Alain Wertheimer, global chief executive officer; Christine Dagousset, president, fragrance and beauty; John Galantic, president, US and chief operating officer; Barbara Menarguez, executive vice president, fragrance and beauty.

Major Products: Fragrances—Chanel No. 5, Allure, Allure Homme, Coco, Coco Mademoiselle, Chance, No.19, Cristalle, Pour Monsieur, Antaeus, Egoïste, Les Exclusifs, Bleu de Chanel. Skin care—Sublimage, Ultra Correction Lift and Line Repair, Hydramax + Active, White Essentiel, Le Blanc, Hydra-Beauty. Color cosmetics—Rouge Allure, Rouge Coco, Le Vernis, Inimitable, Inimitable Intense, Les 4 Ombres, Vitalumière, Joues Contrastes.

New Products: Chanel No. 5 L’eau, Gabrielle Chanel eau de parfum; Les Beiges color collection; Mist It anti-fatigue mist; Hydra Beauty micro serum.

Comments: Chanel dominates every top fragrance list, but even an iconic scent like No. 5 can benefit from a reinterpretation. Enter Chanel No. 5 L’Eau, which is billed as a youthful scent intended to appeal to millennials. Chanel No. 5 L’Eau, created by Olivier Polge, contains top notes of lemon, mandarin, orange, neroli and aldehydes; middle notes of rose, ylang-ylang and  jasmine; and a drydown of cedar and white musk. According to sources, the introduction of L’Eau helped Chanel’s fragrance sales rise 2%.

Earlier this year, Barbara Menarguez was named executive vice president of fragrance and beauty, succeeding Julien Gommichon, who left the company. Menarguez has been with Chanel for 19 years, and most recently served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of fragrance and beauty. Prior to Chanel, Menarguez worked at Lenox as director of finance and Deloitte as senior audit manager. Chanel was one of her audit clients when she was with Deloitte.

This Spring, Chanel introduced Hydra Beauty Micro Crème, which it calls the first cream based on camellia micro-droplets. Chanel says its research has taken a new step in the area of microfluidics for cosmetics, resulting in an emulsion that is more orderly than conventional technologies. Droplet stability is secured by a complex coacervation process which combines two polymers interacting together in the manner of “molecular velcro tapes” to form an evanescent membrane. These calibrated and stable droplets burst instantly upon application with outstanding moisturizing efficiency for the skin, according to Chanel.

For the consumer, Hydra Beauty Micro Crème delivers a “sensory cascade”  where the fresh feeling of water is followed by the richness of the oil. Hydra Beauty Micro Créme was created with the help of Capsum, a startup company, based in Marseille, with expertise in microfluidics.

“This is an example of successful co-development between Chanel and a start-up,” said Christian Mahé, senior vice president of Chanel Beauty Research and Innovation.  “This microfluidics innovation platform is capable of broadening the scope of possibilities—new technologies, new visuals, new textures—to develop tomorrow’s cosmetics.”

The company has high hopes for the recently launched Gabrielle Chanel EDP, which has been described as an “abstract floral.” Following a limited launch earlier this summer, the scent will reach 10,000 doors around the world. Company executives expect Gabrielle Chanel to crack the top 10 best-selling global scents. If it does, Gabrielle Chanel is sure to be flanked by Coco and No. 5!