PARIS — Jacques Helleu, Chanel's artistic director for more than four decades, died Friday at age 69 after a long illness.

Helleu was the driving force behind the image of the Chanel beauty business, whose No.5 fragrance remains the perennial bestseller worldwide. Helleu, who joined Chanel at age 18, was also in charge of image for the company's fine jewelry and its watch collection, for which he designed the timepieces, such as the J12.

Under his tutelage, the company has had a long history of cinematic and fantasy-themed advertising in both film and print form, counting Catherine Deneuve, Ali MacGraw, Candice Bergen, Kate Moss, Nicole Kidman and, most recently, Keira Knightley among its celebrity pitchwomen. Filmmakers and photographers who have worked on Chanel campaigns include Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Jean-Paul Goude, Baz Luhrmann, Luc Besson and Ridley Scott.

Maureen Chiquet, the company's global chief executive officer, praised Helleu's career in a memo to Chanel employees.

"His larger-than-life personality, immense talents and unique vision have defined Chanel as the ultimate house of luxury, with an unparalleled global presence," she wrote. "He succeeded in bringing Chanel into the 21st century as a leader in the world of exclusivity.

"'Taste is a gift,' he often confessed," the statement continued. "He guided us in his artistic choices, which have given Chanel its worldwide aura."

Throughout his career, Helleu maintained the continuous rejuvenation of a brand's advertising is key to its longevity. He said vital to such an approach is "simplicity," a keystone first laid down by Gabrielle Chanel for the premiere Chanel No.5 ad in 1921. And it subsequently underlined all of the fragrances' campaigns, each an iteration of the same story.

But that wasn't all. Many of the Chanel No.5 ads radiated a certain je ne sais quoi due to their use of actress-models. The first of that newfangled breed was Deneuve, the face of Chanel No.5 from 1968 to 1976. Helleu said he chose her not because Deneuve was already a star, but after he spotted her in a tiny photograph on the cover of Look magazine.

"It called her 'the most beautiful woman in the world,'" he reminisced during an interview for WWD Beauty Biz, a sister publication of WWD, in 2002. "I said there was something magical in that."