Caroline Young - What Coco Chanel Can Teach You About Fashion

Born into poverty and raised in a convent,Coco Chanel set her own rules on how to live. Through her creativity, she freed women from the corset and played with gendered dress, using items from male wardrobes and adapting them for a female silhouette. With her short hair, tanned skin and love affairs, in which she disregarded the rules, she was symbolic of the modern, freedom-loving woman of the 1920s, as represented by her boyish garonnelook. In the 1950s, following the designers post-war comeback, Chanel considered clothing for the active, independent woman breaking from the nipped-in Dior New Look with dresses and suits that allowed women to breathe.

Her designs attracted the most fashionable women in the world society ladies and courtesans, Parisian stage actresses, stylish British aristocrats and cinema icons. Her collections over the years changed little the tweed jacket, the Little Black Dress, ropes of pearls, Breton tops, the quilted bags, a splash of Chanel N5 all still considered status symbols for the chic, modern woman. She was the perfect model for her own clothes, and the fabrics, silhouettes and motifs she chose, including the number five, the lion symbol and the camellia, all spoke a secret code.