My girls are all twitterpated by the upcoming release of Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu. Created by in-house perfumer Olivier Polge (son of Jacques Polge, who created the original 2001 Coco Mademoiselle), Crush Absolu keeps the DNA of the original – rose, jasmine, patchouli, vetiver – but pushes it in a juicier, more intense direction. The opening is what makes it interesting: a grapefruit-lychee accord gives it a bright, almost jammy sweetness before settling into a warm amber-vanilla base. CHANEL is describing it as an “affirmation of self” – bolder and more unapologetic than the original, while still unmistakably Coco Mademoiselle underneath. They are among the first to give in to the new Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu fragrance. A composition that is magnetic, just like Gabrielle Chanel herself. Long before Chanel No. 5 or the little black dress, there was a stable, a countryside château, and a young seamstress named Gabrielle Chanel who found her creative voice not in a Paris atelier, but on the sidelines of a polo match. In the early 1900s, polo was a man's world [and by the way, it still is in 2026, but for the first time more women are taking up polo this year than men] — tailored breeches, precise tack, and horses thundering across manicured fields. Women, when they appeared at all, stood at the edges in restrictive skirts. Chanel broke that mold almost by accident. As a young woman, she was photographed wearing polo pants as early as 1909, a small act of rebellion that quietly foreshadowed the revolution she'd later bring to women's fashion. That rebellion had a source: Étienne Balsan, a wealthy horseman and Chanel's companion at the time, who took her in at
