How Coco Chanel changed the course of women’s fashion

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was one of the most influential seamstresses of the 20th century. A trained miller, she went beyond hats to become a rebel and leader in the fashion world, creating a new tailoring style that freed women from corsets and lace ruffles by offering them sailor shirts. and wide leg pants.

“Nothing is more beautiful than the freedom of the body,” she once said, and her designs lived on these words: Chanel’s silhouettes were fluid and androgenic, her designs loose, and, in the case of her iconic black dress , or LBD, – democratic. He wanted women to move and breathe clothes, just as men did to theirs. Her work was, in many ways, a form of female emancipation.

Sunday marks 50 years since Chanel’s death, at age 87, though her legacy endures. In addition to revolutionizing the way we dress, it helped form a new ideal about what could be a fashion brand: a global force that could address every aspect of a woman’s life, from clothing. formal to holiday and night wardrobes.

Chanel embodied her vision in “Coco-isms” which read as acid precursors to today’s ubiquitous inspirational phrases: “a woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future” or “If you’re sad, add more lipsticks and attack . ”

Here are eight major style innovations from a designer who once famously said, “I don’t do fashion. I’m fashionable.”

Women’s trousers

Chanel did not invent women’s trousers: they had already entered the closets during World War I, when women began to occupy jobs traditionally performed by men. But it certainly popularized them as a fashion piece.

The designer liked to wear pants herself (she often borrowed them from her male lovers) and, as early as 1918, she began wearing loose “beach pajamas” while on vacation on the Côte d’Azur. Inspired by the wide, straight cuts of navy pants, which gave them a loose, comfortable shape, he paired them with oversized shirts or sleeveless tops.

The piece was considered risky at the time, due to the association of pajamas with the bedroom, but in the mid-1920s it became a staple among wealthy ladies and an element of the collections of Chanel.

Nautical tops

From the 19th century, French sailors and fishermen wore Breton tops (striped sweaters made of well-woven wool to protect them from the elements). Chanel, however, made them fashionable.

Striped pieces appeared in his store at the Deauville, Normandy social complex in the 1910s. He reworked them with a T-shirt, giving them patch pockets and accessorizing them with thick belts. The nautical look was casual and far less serious than the rigid aesthetic of the Belle Époque, quickly becoming a hit among elegant women both on and off the beach.

Soon, Breton stripes could be found on the pages of British and American Vogue. And even today, you probably have some in your closet.

Jewelry

Mixing the high with the low is a common practice in vogue today. But it was considered radical when Chanel introduced costume jewelry into its collections, turning something considered cheap and catchy into a symbol of modern style (although its first rival Paul Poiret should be credited as pioneer in the trend).

“A woman should mix the fake and the real,” Chanel once stated. “The goal of jewelry is not to make a woman look rich but to adorn her; it’s not the same.”

In the early 1930s, he collaborated with Italian jeweler Duke Fulco de Verdura to create what would become his iconic fists of the Maltese Cross, adorned with multicolored semi-precious stones. At the end of that decade, she threw exclusive necklaces of hanging and delicate chains and intertwined with imitation pearls and shiny stones. They followed chains of layers of fake pearls, proudly worn by Chanel herself, and a trend was born.

The little black dress

In 1926, Vogue published a drawing of a simple, long calf-length black dress, made with Chinese crepe. He wore narrow, long sleeves and a low waist, and was adorned with a chain of pearls. The magazine described him as the “Chanel’s Ford”, referring to the then popular T model. In other words, it was such a simple piece that it could be accessible to any buyer, “a kind of uniform for all women of taste,” as the post said.

The set was nicknamed the “little black dress” and the rest is history. During the Great Depression, LBD became the dress of choice for a whole generation of women consumers and, in recent decades, an essential part of women’s wardrobes everywhere. Countless iterations and imitations have been followed, but the understated elegance of Chanel’s original number remains unmatched.

The Chanel dress

The Chanel dress changed the game, not only for fashion, but for the liberation of women.

Coco Chanel introduced her first two-piece set in the 1920s, inspired by men’s and sportswear, as well as the dresses of her then lover, the Duke of Westminster. Desired to free women from the restricted corsets and long skirts of previous decades, Chanel made a thin skirt and a jacket without a tweed collar, a fabric then considered markedly unglamorous.

The dress was modern, slightly masculine and ideal for the post-war woman who was making her first foray into the business world. Its popularity continued over the years and appeared in the collections of the house of Chanel, including those of Karl Lagerfeld.

Some of the most influential women of all time also wore the Chanel dress, from Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly to Brigitte Bardot and Princess Diana.

Chanel núm. 5

Chanel launched its No. 5 perfume of the same name in 1921. A year earlier, according to legend, it had challenged Franco-Russian perfumer Ernest Beaux to create an aroma that would make its user “smell like a woman and not a rose.” . “The result was a blend of 80 natural and synthetic ingredients, which Beaux presented him with a numbered number of perfume samples to choose from.

He chose the fifth. The mixture subverted the notion of fragrances as a symbol of high social class, rather than propelling the idea that women could be multiple things: natural and artificial, provocative and pure.

“It was what I expected,” Chanel later said. “A perfume like nothing else. A woman’s perfume, with a woman’s scent.”

It was also one of the biggest and most successful brand exercises in fashion history. Placing their name visibly on every bottle and advertisement of their perfumes, Chanel linked them forever to the identity of the house.

Sweater dresses

Chanel loved the t-shirt. The fabric was especially prominent in its garments influenced by sportswear, to the surprise of its clientele, who were accustomed to satin and silk.

It was an unusual choice for the time: Jersey had hitherto been used primarily for men’s underwear.

But it was easy to work with and comfortable, encapsulating everything the designer wanted to create for her clients. It’s important to note for Chanel, who was always the entrepreneur, that she was also relatively cheap and helped keep costs low as she established herself and her label.

She was the first designer to popularize the women’s fashion t-shirt, using material for dresses, skirts, sweaters and more, a tradition that Lagerfeld maintained as a creative director for decades after her death.

The 2.55 bag

One of the most iconic Chanel handbags of all time, the 2.55 subverted all the rules when it was launched in February 1955 (hence its name). It was the first luxury bag for women that came with a shoulder strap; all the claws had to be carried by hand, including those of Chanel.

The innovative modification offered new freedom to women and transformed the way women’s handbags were designed. Critics thought the 2.55 was vague, but shoppers loved its practicality. And practical, no doubt: the chain strap could be folded and turned from a shoulder, an outer pocket with a flap was designed to store money, and the center bag was the perfect shape for the lipstick.

The 2.55 also introduced two Chanel signatures: the deep burgundy color used on its lining and the diamond-stitched padding, inspired by the jackets men wore to races.

Top image: Coco Chanel with Duke Laurino of Rome on a beach on the Lido.