Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur: "Chance Eau Splendide is a way of living life"

Chanel Beauty has added a new fragrance to the Chance family. It’s called Chance Eau Splendide, its color is purple, and its notes include raspberry, rose, and violet. At its heart lies a refined and magnetic floral bouquet centered around Geranium rosat, grown in Chanel’s fields in Grasse, enhanced with cedar, white musk, and powdery iris. To celebrate the launch - which also features a campaign with singer Angèle - an event was held in Paris, where we had the opportunity to meet Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, Head of Global Creative Resources Fragrance & Beauty at Chanel. He shared not only the behind-the-scenes details of the brand-new campaign but also how this latest fragrance fits into the broader Chanel strategy.

“When choosing an ambassador, the first important thing is that you must truly like the person. Many people think it’s just about what they represent, but it goes beyond that: there must be genuine admiration, a real desire to work together.” Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur clearly admires Angèle, the Belgian singer born in 1995, who not only wrote a song for the campaign - titled A little more and available on all streaming platform - but also performed at the launch party, held in Paris on April 3rd.

In the campaign video, we see her running through a kaleidoscopic, purple mirror maze (the fragrance’s signature color) chasing luck, playing with oversized bottles of the perfume, in the playful and youthful style of the Chance line. The inspirations are many. In Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur’s words: “On one hand, there’s the history of the Chance line itself, which began in 2003. On the other hand, there’s the constant desire to innovate. The urge to say: grab your destiny, believe in it. It’s that feeling you have when you’re young - the world is open, and there’s a whole life to enjoy.” And that’s not all: “Finally, there was the need to bring something different: the joy, the energy that comes with the name ‘Splendide.’ We wanted fanfare.” Angèle was the natural choice: “I was thinking about who could embody this idea, this feeling. Who could relate to this notion of destiny? I remembered that Angèle had often said music came into her life as if opening the doors of fate, and she seized the opportunity. So I spoke to her, told her that Jean-Pierre Jeunet would direct the film, that Steven Meisel would handle the photography — and we landed on this somewhat Sixties-inspired concept. I find her vibe very 1960s.” The ambassador, of course, is crucial to a fragrance’s success — but it’s not everything: “To create a successful perfume, you need a perfect product — a beautiful, high-quality fragrance with refined packaging. That gets you halfway. The other half is the ambassador. With all these elements combined, a fragrance becomes a global success.”

The fragrance market is expanding rapidly, and scents are becoming increasingly important to luxury maisons — now more than ever: “At the end of the day, it’s a popular and accessible product, especially in the case of a fragrance like Chance Eau Splendide. It’s a way to invite the audience to get to know the brand. But it’s more than that — a fragrance is invisible. When you create a scent and pair it with a story, a campaign, a song, you create a shared narrative. I believe that narrative is essential.” And perhaps it’s exactly this storytelling that resonates so deeply with younger generations like Gen Z, who are increasingly drawn to the world of fragrance. Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur believes there’s something more: “A fragrance is a way to mark one’s presence, one’s personality — a way to stand out, to express uniqueness. This sense of individuality is central to Gen Z, especially in a world where there’s fear of disappearing in the virtual. The physical, perceptible side becomes even more important.”

In short, his vision of the present is deeply aware. No surprise, considering he’s been at Chanel since 2008, witnessing significant transformations in the world of fragrances and beauty. “The biggest change I’ve seen,” he tells us, “is that there are many more brands now, and products don’t stay on the market for long — there’s a kind of fatigue. It’s too much. Social media contributes to this. Fragrances today face more challenges. They must be long-lasting, they must endure. High-quality ones manage to do that.” Long before him, however, Chanel had already embraced longevity — with the Chance fragrance family. The first was launched in 2003, with notes of white musk and vanilla, followed by three more interpretations and nuances: Chance Eau Fraîche, a dynamic and vibrant green; Chance Eau Tendre, a soft and delicate pink; and Chance Eau Vive, a bold and fiery orange. “Chance Eau Splendide is, above all, a new scent - but one that fits into an existing line. Chance, in general, is a way of moving through the world, of believing in oneself and what surrounds us - in destiny. There are many ways to do that, many paths. Each path has its fragrance, its own way of talking about chance, about luck — but the story at the heart remains the same.”