Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel – Fashion Designer Encyclopedia – clothing, century, women, suits, men, dress, style, new

French fashion designer

Born:

Saumur, France, 19 August 1883.

Education:

At convent orphanage, Aubazine, 1895-1900; convent school, Moulins,
1900-02.

Career:

Clerk, Au Sans Pareil hosiery shop, Moulins, 1902-04; café-concert
singer, using nickname “Coco,” in Moulins and Vichy,
1905-08; lived with Etienne Balsan, Château de Royalieu and in Paris,
1908-09; stage costume designer, 1912-37, established millinery and
women’s fashion house with sponsorship of Arthur
“Boy” Cappel, in Paris, 1913, later on rue Cambon, Paris,
1928; established fashion shops in Deauville, 1913, Biarritz, 1916;
fragrance,

No. 5,

marketed from 1921; film costume designer, 1931-62; headquarters closed
during World War II; exiled to Lausanne for affair with Nazi officer,
1945-53; rue Cambon headquarters reopened and first post-war showing,
1954; Broadway musical

Coco,

starring Katherine Hepburn debuted on Broadway, 1969; company continued
after Chanel’s death, 1971; ready-to-wear introduced, 1977; Karl
Lagerfeld brought in as designer for couture, 1983; Lagerfeld took over
ready-to-wear, 1984; gun manufacturer Holland & Holland acquired,
1996; French beachwear company Eres pruchased, 1997; one licensing
agreement with Luxxotica for eyewear. Other fragrances include

No. 22,

1921,

Cuir de Russie,

1924,

No. 19,

1970, and from the House of Chanel,

Cristalle,

1974,

Coco,

1984,

Egoïste

for men, 1990,

Allure,

1996, and

Allure Homme,

1998; launch of

Precision

skincare line, 1999; introduced line of his-and-hers watches, 2000.

Exhibitions:


Les Grands Couturiers Parisiens 1910-1939,

Musée du Costume, Paris, 1965;

Fashion: An Anthology,

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1971;

The Tens, Twenties & Thirties,

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1977;

Folies de dentelles: Balenciaga, Cardin, Chanel, Dior…Exposition
du 24 juin au octobre 2000,

Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la dentelle, 2000.

Awards:

Neiman Marcus award, Dallas, 1957;

Sunday Times

International Fashion award, London, 1963.

Died:

10 January 1971, in Paris.

Company Address:

29-31 rue Cambon, 75001 Paris, France.

Company Website:

www.chanel.com

.

Articles

“Gabrielle Chanel,” [obituary] in the

Times

(London), 12 January 1971.

“Chanel No. 1,” in

Time,

25 January 1971.

Shaeffer, Claire, “The Comfortable Side of Couture,” in

Threads

(Newtown, Connecticut), June/July 1989.

Kazanjian, Dodie, “Chanel Suit,” in

Vogue,

August 1990.

Fedii, Daniela, “Coco la ribelle,” in

Elle

(Milan), November 1990.

Steele, Valerie, “Chanel in Context,” in Juliet Ash and
Elizabeth Wilson, eds.,

Chic Thrills, A Fashion Reader,

Berkeley, California 1993.

Collins, Amy Fine, “Haute Coco,” in

Vanity Fair

(New York), June 1994.

Menkes, Suzy, “Strong Chanel Holds Up Couture’s Falling
Walls,” in the

International Herald Tribune,

21 March 1995.

Spindler, Amy M., “Lagerfeld Tones Down the Look at
Chanel,” in the

New York Times,

21 March 1995.

“Chanel: The Naughty Professor,” in

Women’s Wear Daily,

21 March 1995.

Sakamaki, Sachiko, “Chanel Surfing in Tokyo; Japan is Nuts About
the French Brand Name,” in the

Far Eastern Economic Review,

11 January 1996.

Menkes, Suzy, “Magnificent Chanel Defines the Season,” in
the

International Herald Tribune,

4 March 2000.

——, “Class and Classics at Chanel,” in the

International Herald Tribune,

24 January 2001.

——, “Chanel Goes to the Head of the Class,”
in the

International Herald Tribune,

11 July 2001.

***

A woman of ambition and determination, Gabrielle Chanel, nicknamed
“Coco,” rose from humble beginnings and an unhappy
childhood to become one of the 20th century’s most prominent
couturiers, prevailing for nearly half a century. In contrast to the
opulent elegance of the

belle époque,

Chanel’s designs were based on simplicity and elegance. She
introduced relaxed dressing, expressing the aspirations of the
day’s woman, replacing impractical clothing with functional
styling.

Chanel’s early years tended to be vague in detail, being full of
inaccuracies and contradictions, due to her deliberate concealment of
her deprived childhood. It is generally accepted that Chanel gained some
dressmaking and millinery experience prior to working in a hat shop in
Deauville, France. Using her skills as a milliner she opened shops in
Paris, Deauville, and Biarritz with the financial assistance of a
backer. Chanel was an astute businesswoman and skillful publicist,
quickly expanding her work to include skirts, jerseys in stockinette
jersey, and accessories.

Recognized as the designer of the 1920s, Chanel initiated an era of
casual dressing, appropriate to the occasion, for relaxed outdoor
clothing created to be worn in comfort and without constricting corsets,
liberating women with loosely fitting garments. Her style was of
uncluttered simplicity, incorporating practical details.

In 1916 Chanel introduced jersey, a soft elasticated knit previously
only used for undergarments, as the new fashion fabric. Wool jersey
produced softer, lighter clothing with uncluttered fluid lines. She made
simple jersey dresses in navy and grey, cut to flatter the figure rather
than to emphasize and distort the natural body shape. The demand for her
new nonconformist designs by the wealthy was so great and the use of
jersey so successful Chanel extended her range, creating her own jersey
fabric designs, which were manufactured by Rodier.

Highly original in her concept of design, Chanel ceaselessly borrowed
ideas from the male wardrobe, combining masculine tailoring with
women’s clothing. Her suits were precise but remain untailored,
with flowing lines, retaining considerable individuality and simple
elegance. Riding breeches, wide-legged trousers, blazers, and sweaters
were all taken and adapted. A major force in introducing and
establishing common sense and understated simplicity into womenswear,
Chanel’s coordination of the cardigan, worn with a classic
straight skirt, became a standard combination of wearable separates.

Chanel produced her cardigans in tweed and jersey fabrics, initiating
the perennially popular “Chanel suit,” which usually
consisted of two or three pieces: a cardigan-style jacket, weighted with
her trademark gilt chain stitched around the inside hem, a simple
easy-to-wear skirt, worn with a blouse (with blouse fabric coordinated
with the jacket lining). Her work offered comfort and streamlined
simplicity, creating clothes for the modern woman, whom she epitomized
herself. The key to her design philosophy was construction, producing
traditional classics outliving each season’s new fashion trends
and apparel. While other designers presented new looks for each new
season, Chanel adapted the refined detailing and style lines.

Her colors were predominantly grey, navy, and beige, incorporating
highlights of a richer and broader palette. Chanel introduced the ever
popular “little black dress,”created for daywear,
eveningwear, and cocktail dressing which became a firm fixture in the
fashion world during her tenure, and is still popular today.

Attentive to detail, adding to day and eveningwear, Chanel established a
reputation for extensive uses of costume jewelery, with innovative
combinations of real and imitation gems, crystal clusters, strings of
pearls, and ornate jewelled cuff links, adding brilliant contrast to the
stark simplicity of her designs. The successful development of

Chanel No. 5

perfume in 1922 assisted in the financing of her couture empire during
difficult years. An interesting aspect of Chanel’s career was the
reopening of her couture house, which was closed during World War II.
After 15 years in exile for having an affair with Nazi officer Hans
Gunther von Dincklage, Chanel relaunched her work in 1954 at the age of
71, reintroducing the Chanel suit, which formed the basis for many of
her collections and become a hallmark. The look adopted shorter skirts
and braid trimmed cardigan jackets.

Despite her work and individual style, Chanel craved personal and
financial independence, and was ruthless in her search for success. She
was unique in revolutionizing the fashion industry with dress reform and
in promoting the emancipation of women. Her influence touched many
American and European designers, who have continued to reinforce her
concept of uncomplicated classics. Once such designer is Karl Lagerfeld
who took over designing the Chanel couture line in 1983 and its
ready-to-wear collections the following year. He is widely credited with
bringing Chanel back to the forefront of fashion, by taking original
Chanel designs and tweaking them to appeal to younger customers.

Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s Lagerfeld kept the Chanel name
alive and well. His collections receive high praise, season after
season, and he is among the last of the great old-school designers. As
Suzy Menkes of the

International Herald Tribune

so aptly put it in March 2000, “Lagerfeld will soon be the last
of the fashion Mohicans, the tribe that came center stage in
ready-to-wear in the 1960s but were schooled in the old couture ways of
rigorous cut, perfect execution, invention in detail.… Who in the
next generation can ever fill his seven-league boots?” Who
indeed?