Chanel, quintessential refinement.
No brand embodies French-style chic better than Chanel. A symbol of luxurious, refined fashion, the company, founded in 1910 is famed all around the world for its haute couture creations and lines of perfume, like the ultra-famous N°5. With know-how worthy of the greatest, the label also puts its name to numerous collections of leather goods and jewellery.
Responsible for it all, a young hat designer.
Behind the iconic brand, lies a woman, Gabrielle Chanel. Orphaned when she was 12 years old, she started to work at a very young age in a dressmaking business. A few years later, she became an accomplished seamstress and opened her first hat design workshop in Paris. Success followed, even leading her to open a second boutique, then a third and a fourth, although she was no longer only selling hats. Visionary, the woman known as Coco Chanel aspired to take part in the feminine revolution that was, at the time, still brewing. With her, restrictive corsets disappeared, replaced by simple dresses and tweed suits. Coco Chanel modernised the famous little black dress, black until then being the colour reserved for mourning. Inspired by a more masculine wardrobe, she pursued her revolution, embellishing her clothes with buttons and uniform braids, and introducing Breton tops, cardigans and trousers into the feminine wardrobe. Combining elegance with simplicity in a style revolving around black and white, her designs stood out through their timeless cuts and unexpected details. As Coco Chanel used to say "Fashion goes out of fashion, style never does".
The Chanel label is today present in different sectors of the luxury industry. It proposes in particular high jewellery collections and lines of leather goods, amongst which we find the 2.55 quilted bag, a legendary model synonymous with the Chanel spirit.
Liberated elegance.
In 1982, fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld succeeded Coco Chanel at the head of creative design. Over the course of successive collections, he managed to establish his style while at the same time respecting the founder's legacy. He also put his name to the label's first line of watches with the Chanel Première watch. Over the years, numerous women have falled in love with the house of haute couture. Inès de la Fressange, Catherine Deneuve, Nicole Kidman, Vanessa Paradis, Keira Knightley and Lily Rose Depp are amongst the fashion house's most famous muses. Today, found all over the world, Chanel remains the symbol of a fierce imagination: that of an elegant and liberated lady, sharing her beliefs despite opposition... but always with style.
Epitomising luxury à la française, Chanel products are of the highest quality, and have in turn won over the hearts of the most demanding women where fashion is concerned. Wearing Chanel, like the tweed suit or two-tone ballet pumps, is today a sign of complete refinement. Amongst the famous creations of the couture house, some favourites are: