Timothée Chalamet goes behind the scenes with the new Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif
Chanel dials up the intensity with their new Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif fragrance starring Timothée Chalamet
THERE ARE FEW COLOURS in the spectrum that convey the level of complexity that blue does. It can be a cool, icy shade of pale. Or a comforting and commanding navy. It can be the electric charge of ultramarine or the calm cheerfulness of a blue sky.
When Bleu de Chanel first appeared in 2010, it added another chapter to the colour’s narrative. Rather than painting the physical world, it coloured our senses. A fresh and woody “blue”; a scent that merged two variants of the traditional cologne structure – woody or citrus. It challenged the masculine fragrance landscape with a composition that was at once direct and enigmatic – classic, but definitely modern. Fifteen years later, Chanel has returned to that foundation. This time, an intensification. Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif is described as the ultimate expression of the line, a fragrance that distils its codes into something denser, darker, and more uncompromising.
Fronting the campaign is the current face of the Bleu line, Timothée Chalamet, here embodying the new chapter. In the accompanying campaign video, Chanel casts him as elusive and uncontainable, the human analogue of a fragrance that resists being held still. Behind the scenes, Chalamet sits with Chanel’s Perfumer-Creator Olivier Polge to learn about the depth of the sandalwood. The scene is similar to the way an actor delves into his role through the lens of a director.
Developed by Olivier Polge, Chanel’s Perfumer-Creator, Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif extends the original’s architecture of woods by centring sandalwood as its axis. This particular strain of sandalwood is sourced through Chanel’s own integrated, sustainable supply chain on the island of Maré in New Caledonia, where only the heartwood is harvested and transformed via a proprietary extraction process. Around this core, cistus labdanum introduces leathery, resinous facets, creating an amber-woody depth that shifts Bleu away from its familiar clarity toward a more opaque and magnetic register.
Its arrival coincides with a broader cultural turn in men’s perfumery. Where once freshness was the defining measure of a masculine scent, today there is a desire for signature and endurance. As men increasingly seek fragrances that project presence and remain tenacious, Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif responds directly to that shift. It does not abandon the DNA of the 2010 original – there remains a thread of brightness – but its structure insists on weight and persistence, carrying what Chanel calls a “bewitching trail”.
This new intensity matches the shifting landscape of men’s grooming – the era of FragranceTok and the revival of complex accords that evolve over time, matching the mood and circumstances of the wearer.
The new bottle design also reflects this evolution. Stripped to the most basic of geometric building blocks, its silhouette is a perfect square, a cube rendered in chiaroscuro. It’s been described as a blue too blue to be black, too black to be blue, while taking the cubed shape of an inkwell – a vessel that suggests permanence and density.
In this way, Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif functions as a culmination. It continues the DNA of the fragrance while carrying it into new territory: more assertive in its woods, more shadowed in tone and more ambitious in scale.
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