Book, No. 5 Culture Chanel, 2013 — Book as Exhibition

Book, No. 5 Culture Chanel, 2013 The Amsterdam-based designer Irma Boom has made some innovative books, and a staggering 20 percent have found a home in a permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Arts. 1 Such books are truly an experience — objects to be appreciated — even when they are technically vehicles for other artists. Indeed, Boom pushes the boundaries of bookmaking. In 2013, she completed a book commissioned by Chanel for its Chanel No. 5 perfume.

The 300-page book has no ink—each of its crisp white pages is embossed with a
drawing or quotation that helps Gabrielle Chanel’s story unfold.2 It is clean,
understated and ephemeral, and somehow it remains totally engrossing. In a way,
they are already like the books displayed in the vitrines at the Graphic Design
Now in Production exhibition, where books and magazines are ephemeral and
celebrated for their design. When Boom begins working on a book, she totally
immerses herself in the subject. In this case, she spent time in Chanel’s Paris
apartment and studied her life.3 Boom witnessed the bottling process and even
joined the Chanel team as they picked roses in Grasse, a village in the
Provenance region of France.4 There Boom generated her idea for the book.5 What
she smelled there was intense and exciting, yet invisible. She had used
embossing as the only source of printing by operating an old letterpress
machine with the ink removed.