The Story of Chanel

The little black dress, the tweed suit, the quilted leather handbag, and the first-ever designer perfume—these are just some of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's lasting contributions to fashion. Little did she know when she opened her small millinery shop in Paris in 1913 that she was laying the foundation for what would become one of the world's most illustrious fashion houses. Offering a selection of sporty clothes alongside her cloches and toques, however, Chanel speedily became the rage among upper-crust made moiselles eager to don her modishly boyish dresses made of unfussy jersey (a fabric that until then had been used primarily for men's underwear.)

World War I broke out the very next year, of course, but in the long run that only boosted the popularity of Chanel's new kind of chic, as women sought more comfortable garments to replace their restrictive corsets. Throughout the twenties and thirties, Chanel continued to revolutionize the way women dressed, particularly with the popularization of the Chanel suit, which for the first time gave women a social—or perhaps even work—uniform as simple and unimpeachable as a man's business three-piece. Chanel No. 5 was created in 1923 and is still the best-selling fragrance in the world all these decades later.

While Chanel's legacy is legendary, so was the public persona she constructed and promoted. Raised in a French orphanage, she rewrote the narrative of her life, cultivating an aura of privilege. "Coco," the persona known for her royal lovers, rotogravure friends, and rarefied tastes, became her own best advertisement.

Again buffeted by the winds of war, Chanel shut the doors to her atelier in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. She didn't reopen the business until 1953, introducing the Chanel suit to a new generation of women.

The first lady of fashion died in 1971 at the age of 86 at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, where she had lived for 30 years. While a design team kept the label on life support, it wasn't until 1983, when Karl Lagerfeld assumed creative control, that the house was reborn in all its glory. Today, the company is privately owned by Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, the grandsons of Pierre Wertheimer, who originally funded Chanel No. 5.

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