The art of invisible eco-design: how CHANEL is redefining luxury through imperceptible changes

Winning the Fragrance category at this year’s Paris Packaging Week, CHANEL’s latest iteration of its classic CHANCE line - CHANCE Eau Splendide - demonstrates a growing industry trend: sustainability is no longer about visually disruptive "green" cues. Instead, the focus has shifted toward high-tech material substitution and hidden lightweighting that elevate, rather than compromise, the luxury experience.

The challenge of evolving an icon

When a fragrance bottle has been a recognisable symbol for over two decades, redesigning it comes with inherent risks. For CHANEL’s Packaging Creation & Graphic Identity team, led by Sylvie Legastelois, the directive was clear: evolve the 2002 CHANCE bottle responsibly, anchoring it in the modern era while preserving its desirability and sensory appeal.

To achieve this, CHANEL spent over three years collaborating with 10 historic supply chain partners to revamp the bottle while maintaining its standards.

Small shifts, massive impact

The CHANCE Eau Splendide redesign is subtle. To the consumer, the bottle remains the sleek, luxurious object of desire they have always known. Behind the scenes, however, the material architecture has been fundamentally transformed.

Historically, the CHANCE bottle was made with a heavy Zamac cap and brass side bands. CHANEL’s team engineered to replace both of these heavy metals with aluminum.

By transitioning to aluminium for both the cap and the bands, CHANEL tackled multiple sustainability pillars:

• Unlocking Full Recyclability: unlike Zamac, which wasn't recyclable at scale (until now), aluminium is infinitely recyclable without loss of quality. This material substitution is the primary driver behind the CHANCE Eau Splendide bottle achieving an impressive >95% overall recyclability rate.+1
• Drastic Lightweighting: Aluminum offers exceptional strength-to-weight ratios. By engineering the new components entirely from aluminium, CHANEL successfully divided the metal weight of the cap by half (50%) and the weight of the side bands by 4.

For the cap, they used an innovative cold-forging process for aluminium (on a CNC machine) instead of Zamak injection moulding. This marks the first time this technology has been developed in the luxury packaging sector, following five years of development.

For the strip, the expertise was transferred from China to Europe by replacing brass with aluminium. The strip is manufactured in France, with the insert produced in Spain.

By dividing the weight of the metal by half for the cap and by a quarter for the bands, the CHANCE Eau Splendide bottle and its cap boast a 20%¹ reduction in weight. Designed to be over 95%² recyclable, this new fragrance illustrates the House's commitment to the eco-design of its products.

This single material switch, combined with the 15% recycled glass composition, makes the new design over 95% recyclable.

Redefining Desirability in the Modern Era

For brands navigating the premium packaging space, the CHANCE Eau Splendide demonstrates how sustainability can be turned from a constraint into creative expression.

Jeanette Coombs-Lanot, Sustainability Director at CHANEL Fragrance and Beauty, explains, “Sustainability can and must be beautiful. It is not a constraint, but an opportunity to elevate craftsmanship and reinvent the codes of luxury.”

This design proves that desirability and eco-responsibility are not mutually exclusive. Through integrated creation with sustainability teams, packaging engineers, and designers, brands can push the boundaries of technical feasibility from the inception of a project.

As the industry continues to move toward a circular economy, CHANEL’s award-winning bottle reminds us that sometimes the most impactful innovations are the ones the consumer cannot even see.

It is the invisible intelligence of the design that secures both the planet's future and the brand's timelessness.