Chanel N°5 was the first Chanel perfume, launched in 1921. It came out of Gabrielle Chanel's partnership with the French-Russian perfumer Ernest Beaux, and Chanel's own history calls it revolutionary for its composition, its name and its presentation.

The story behind the name is that Beaux presented Chanel with numbered sample vials, and she chose the fifth. Five was a number she held special, and she kept the sample number as the name.

The bottle was meant as an antidote to the ornate crystal flacons of the time. The first version, from 1922, had small rounded shoulders and was sold only in Chanel boutiques. When Parfums Chanel was incorporated in 1924 the glass proved too thin to ship, and the bottle gained the squared, faceted shape it still has, along with the octagonal stopper. The stopper has been re-proportioned several times since, while the bottle itself has stayed the same. A pocket flacon followed in 1934.

The scent's fame grew further after Marilyn Monroe told Life magazine in 1952 that she wore only Chanel N°5 to bed. Andy Warhol made it the subject of a series of silkscreens in the mid-1980s.