Coco Chanel

Gabrielle (more commonly known as Coco) Chanel was an innovator of women’s fashion and somewhat of a legend. Born to a poor French family, Coco Chanel lost her parents early on in life and found herself drawn away from her dismal past and toward the appeal of the upper class, couture fashion in particular. Chanel did many things for the fashion world in her time, the most iconic movement being the ability to wear black. Before the arrival of her “Little Black Dress”, or LBD as it is known more informally in the fashion world, black was only to be worn in times of mourning the loss of loved ones. But Chanel turned this taboo color into the most flattering an popular trend of all time. Nowadays it is near impossible to find a woman that does not own a single simple black dress. Of course these dressed had to vary from time to time, but the simplicity that Chanel instilled in the style kept flashy details and additional colors to a minimum.

Yet another one of Coco Chanel’s timeless creations is the Chanel suit. Although these suits were not the first of their kind, Chanel was the first to create them for the means of fashion and comfort at the same time. Coco wanted her suits to allow “freedom of the body.” All useless features were eliminated and every change insured functionality and elegance. Created to perfection every time, Chanel actually fitted the suits onto her models for every single shoot. Everything down to the tiniest details, such as the gold chains sewn into the hems to allow the fabric to hang exactly right. The design remains as ageless as ever, being reinvented by Karl Lagerfeld but never really straying from Coco’s original vision of comfort and practicality. In fact, when Chanel disappeared to Switzerland in 1938 and then returned to the fashion world in 1954, she picked up right where she left off, using the same basic designs for her world famous Chanel day suit.

Although fashion was her first foray, Coco Chanel also ventured into the business of beauty products, as well as fragrances. In fact, to this day, Chanel N°5 is still the best selling perfume in the world. Quite a complicated fragrance, with over 80 ingredients, which was bizarre of it’s time, the bottle itself contrasted the scent with it’s simplicity. Coco wanted the focus to be only on the perfume itself, and so it was. Chanel was obsessed with the quality of the ingredients that made up the fragrance and while creating it, she insisted on taking the most expensive ingredient, jasmine, and adding even more of it to not only intensify the scent, but also to add value to it. Coco wanted the smell to remain etched into our minds forever, unlike anything else we would ever smell, and she did.


Bott, Daniele. Chanel: Collections and Creations, London: Thames & Hudson, 2007

http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/chanel.html