Like So Many of Us, Queen Elizabeth Adored This Fragrance

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 16 September 2023

She may have been Queen, but, when it comes to fragrances she loved, she was like so many of the rest of us: For her twenty-ninth birthday in 1955, Queen Elizabeth—who at that time had been on the throne for three years—received a bottle of Chanel No. 5, and a handwritten letter from her proved her love for the iconic fragrance.

The letter, which is on display within the V&A’s (Victoria and Albert Museum) new “Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto” exhibition, speaks to her affection for the scent, per Hello. (The new exhibition, by the way, is the U.K.’s first exhibition dedicated to Chanel, whose real name was Gabrielle but, of course, went by Coco.) It was written by the Queen shortly after her twenty-ninth birthday and addressed to Frederick “Boy” Browning, a Knight Commander who was also treasurer in the Office of the Duke of Edinburgh (also known as Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband). He gave her a bottle of Chanel No. 5 for her big day.

“Dear Boy,” the letter reads. “As usual, you have discovered just the very thing I particularly wanted, and I want to thank you very much indeed for the birthday present of the Chanel scent. I am already using it and, I hope, smelling all the better for it!”

There’s no way you haven’t heard of Chanel No. 5, which Hello calls “an olfactory icon” that “requires no introduction.” Its bottle design “broke tradition with its clean lines and rounded corners” and “the scent is capped with an emerald-cut stopper—a shape reminiscent of the Place Vendôme, a sight visible from Gabrielle’s Hotel Ritz Paris suite balcony.”

“Gloriously aldehydic, No. 5 has a lovely powdery violet quality to it,” writes Hello Fashion’s Orin Carlin. “Exuding magnetism, it is heady and intoxicating, but with a fresh line of jasmine running through to provide clarity.”

The exhibition opened today and features almost 200 Chanel looks as well as accessories, perfumes, and jewelry. There is also a dedicated Fragrance and Beauty Room which displays an original Chanel No. 5 bottle from 1921, as well as the letter from the late Queen. The exhibition runs at the V&A until February 25, 2024.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.

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