chanel no. 5

Legend has it that Marilyn Monroe wore nothing but "a few drops of Chanel No. 5" to bed, but it was only last month that the world got an explanation for her famous quote.

"You know they ask you questions," Monroe said during an April 1960 interview with French journalist Georges Belmont. "Just an example: 'What do you wear to bed? Do you wear a pajama top, the bottoms of the pajamas, or a nightgown?' So I said, 'Chanel No. 5!' Because it's the truth! And yet I don't want to say 'nude,' you know? But it's the truth."

The rest of the interview made it into an issue of Marie Claire, but the bit about Chanel wasn't used in the article. In October, Chanel uncovered the recording of the interview and used it to make the fascinating video below.

The second Chanel commercial starring Brad Pitt includes an element we didn't see in his first ad: women.

While the first 30-second spot featured Pitt and only Pitt, the second version mostly uses the actor as a voice-over artist. His monologue, an ode to the fragrance, is overheard, while a group of models appear in different environments: one looks out a window to an urban landscape of buildings, and another appears to be walking on the surface of a lake.

The second commercial also features some of the same black-and-white footage director Joe Wright shot for the first one. But in the new ad, Pitt is only shown a few times, allowing the women in the ad to become the focus.

On the same day that it revealed details about its latest project with Brad Pitt, Chanel has introduced an entire website that explores the history of its iconic fragrance, No. 5.

The website, appropriately called Inside Chanel, includes a video timeline of the groundbreaking scent, which highlights No. 5's many firsts. The video ends with Pitt, the first man asked to be the face of the bestselling women's fragrance in the world.

Pitt's first commercial for No. 5, directed by Joe Wright, will debut on Oct. 15. The ad will feature Pitt speaking in a way that will make viewers think he's talking to a woman, and then it'll be revealed that he's actually talking to the perfume itself.

"It is the first time we've had a man speaking about a women's fragrance," said Chanel Fragrance and Beauty president Andrea d'Avack. "We think very much that the perfume is a seduction between a man, a woman and the perfume."

A look back at the history of the perfume in the video below.