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The sweet smell of success: the story behind Chanel No 5’s popularity

29 May 2021

9:00 AM

29 May 2021

9:00 AM

The Scent of Empires: Chanel No 5 and Red Moscow Karl Schlögel, translated by Jessica Spengler

Polity, pp.220, 20

This is a curious book, by turns profound and whimsical. Karl Schlögel, a professor of Eastern European history at Frankfurt, begins by stating he didn’t know anything about his chosen subject of perfume beyond going into department stores and duty-free shops to encounter a ‘peculiar mélange of scents… the light and sparkle of crystal, the rainbow of colours, mirrors and glass’.

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