Tailored to perfection

As a fourth-generation perfumer, and the second generation of his family to work for Chanel, Polge's role is to create new fragrances while preserving the essence of their predecessors.

The company has kept its formula for N°5 very close to the original over the years, he says.

While Chanel has created new interpretations of N°5 in more recent times, adapting them from the original and giving them modern touches, the key ingredients have always been "aldehydes, May rose, jasmine, ylang ylang, and vanilla－but the rest remain a secret," Polge says.

The third staircase leads to Chanel's house of high jewelry. The jewelry showcased in Shanghai is the largest display of all the four Mademoiselle Prive exhibitions, and features a recreation of Chanel's Bijoux de Diamants collection from 1932, according to Frederic Grangie, Chanel's watch and fine jewelry president.

"Because this is Shanghai, we put together very complete message about high jewelry, which always brings us back to 1932, for this is how it started," Grangie tells China Daily.