Gardénia was created by Gabrielle Chanel with Ernest Beaux in 1925, a year after the Société des Parfums Chanel was set up to make and sell the house's perfumes and cosmetics, with Beaux as its first in-house perfumer.
Chanel's history explains the choice of flower: the gardenia, like the camellia that became Chanel's emblem, is a white flower whose scent cannot be extracted directly, so the perfume had to recreate it. The house says this gave Gardénia a more distinctive olfactory signature than a simple soliflore.
The perfume was reproduced in 1983 and has formed part of Les Exclusifs de Chanel since the collection was launched in 2007, alongside other early Beaux creations such as N°22, Cuir de Russie and Bois des Îles. It is sold only through Chanel's own boutiques.