Gimme the facts...
Chanel,designer,fashion designer,designer profile,fashion label,challenge designer
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle ‘Coco\' Chanel started her eponymous label in 1909 and opened her first boutique stocking fancy hats soon after on the ground floor of her lover\'s Parisian apartment. It wasn\'t long before she expanded her range to include a collection of women\'s sportswear in 1913 and again further to include flannel blazers, straight linen skirts, sailor tops, long jersey sweaters and skirt suits during the First World War. As her clothes became more and more desirable, in 1921 she launched her debut signature fragrance Chanel No 5 (named after her lucky number), which was the first ever fragrance to have a fashion designer\'s name attached to it. The Chanel label went from strength to strength to become the lucrative global empire it is today. Coco continued as head designer for the brand until her death in 1971 and in 1978 the label (now under the control of Alain Wertheimer), launched its first prêt-à-porter range. In 1983 Wertheimer persuaded current creative director Karl Lagerfeld to take the reins and a new era of Chanel began.
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Audrey Tautou wows at the Coco Before Chanel premiere. See more...
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Coco Chanel made the cut in our best dressed women of all time list. See why...
What\'s all the fuss about?
Chanel,designer,fashion designer,designer profile,fashion label,challenge designer
Chanel s/s 2009
Coco Chanel single-handedly revolutionised haute couture (and ergo all fashion) with her simple designs for the modern woman\'s lifestyle. She banished corsetry and the formidable stiff silhouette of the era in the process truly liberating women. "I gave women a sense of freedom; I gave them back their bodies: bodies that were drenched in sweat, due to fashion\'s finery, lace, corsets, underclothes, padding."
Coco Chanel designed clothes that would totally define the way we dress today and subsequently many of her classic creations are as popular as they were almost a century ago. In particular her suits, which comprised a knee-length skirt and boxy jacket traditionally made of woven wool with gold buttons, whose hem was weighted down with chain. Under the control of Karl Lagerfeld, the Chanel label has built upon its cult status and maintains its position as the ne plus ultra of French chic synonymous with elegance, wealth and elitism.
Who wears it?
Chanel,celebrity fashion,designer,fashion designer,designer profile,fashion label,challenge designer
keira knightley
All the most elegant and understated starlets love Chanel including Keira Knightley (face of the Coco Mademoiselle fragrance), Bond girl Olga Kurylenko, Diane Kruger, Claudia Schiffer, Nicole Kidman and Audrey Tautou who is both spokesperson for the Chanel No 5 fragrance and starring as Coco Chanel in a film of her life Coco Avant Chanel, which opens in the UK in July 2009. The guest list for a Chanel couture show reads like a who\'s who of both the fashion and celebrity worlds plus, of course, no shortage of multi-millionaire clients.
