Inside the Mul family farm that supplies Chanel's iconic No. 5 perfume

For more than a century, the Mul family’s estate near Grasse has supplied the essential flowers for Chanel No. 5, the brand’s most celebrated perfume. Joseph Mul, representing the fourth generation, describes how his great-great-grandfather began the operation in the 1840s and how today his son-in-law Fabrice Bianchi and granddaughter Marika Bianchi continue the work. The farm cultivates May roses and the majority of the region’s jasmine on 30 hectares, harvesting the blossoms by hand in the cool early morning and processing them within hours to preserve quality.

The extraction process turns thousands of kilograms of petals into a scented wax called concrete, which is then refined into a potent absolute used in the final fragrance formula. Chanel’s perfumer Olivier Polge, whose father Jacques served the house for decades, stresses that the unique scent profile depends on these rare, labor-intensive ingredients. A formal partnership between the Mul family and Chanel safeguards the supply chain, allowing the perfume’s formula to remain unchanged since its 1921 launch.