Chanel may be over 100 years old, but the brand remains as relevant today as it ever was — the French house tops Statista’s list of the most famous luxury fashion brands in the U.S., along with Gucci and Dior — but Chanel’s enduring status as an icon of chic is largely down to its namesake founder.
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel launched her eponymous brand in 1910. Several products created during her reign remain bestsellers for the brand, including tweed skirt suits, quilted flap bags and Chanel No. 5. Honoring Chanel continues with the posthumous release of Coco Mademoiselle Eau de Parfum and Coco Rouge lipstick.
Coco Chanel circa 1915.
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Chanel was known for her non-traditional approach to design, using unconventional fabrics, colors, and textures to set trends, many of which have since become established in menswear. Today, she is often hailed as the mother of modern fashion, and was one of the first major designers to fuse comfort and simplicity with style.
In honor of Chanel’s 141st birthday, we look back at major milestones in her career.
1910: The first Chanel boutique opens
31 Rue Cambon, 1936.
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Chanel began her career in the fashion industry as a milliner and opened her first store, Chanel Mode, at 21 Rue Cambon in 1910. French actresses such as Gabrielle D’Orzias wore Chanel’s early creations on and off stage, helping to put the brand on the map.
By 1915, Chanel had opened two more stores in the French coastal cities of Deauville and Biarritz. She introduced ready-to-wear designs and fashionable sportswear made from jersey, a lightweight fabric that was then used to make men’s underwear. Chanel helped popularize breathable fabrics for women in an era of constricting garments like corsets, and her jersey line was an immediate success.
Illustration of a 1917 jersey Chanel suit.
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Chanel employed 300 artisans at her first couture house in Biarritz, where she designed her first haute couture collection.
Three years later, Chanel opened a boutique at 31 rue Cambon in Paris, where it still stands today, and where the designer also founded her couture house.
1921: Launch of Chanel No. 5
An advertisement for Chanel No. 5 from 1921.
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Chanel collaborated with perfumer Ernest Beaux to create her first fragrance, Chanel No. 5. Characterized by notes of jasmine and musk, it remains one of the world’s best-selling perfumes. Named after Chanel’s favorite sample, the number five was considered auspicious.
“I will be presenting my collection on the fifth of May, the fifth month of the year, so let’s leave the number engraved there. The number five will bring good luck,” she once said.
As with her clothes, Chanel also innovated in perfumery by creating simple bottle designs. At the time, most perfumes were housed in elaborate crystal flasks. Legend has it that the Chanel No. 5 bottle was modeled after a whiskey decanter that belonged to her lover, Captain Arthur Edward “Boy” Capel.
Marilyn Monroe in 1955.
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Today, the fragrance is deeply associated with Marilyn Monroe, who mentioned it in a 1952 Time magazine cover story, saying, “This guy asked me, ‘Marilyn, what do you wear to bed?’ I said, I only wear Chanel No. 5.” The iconic photo of Monroe wearing Chanel No. 5 was used in the fragrance’s promotional campaign in 2013. Other famous spokesmodels include Catherine Deneuve, Nicole Kidman, and Chanel herself, who appeared in the fragrance’s first advertisements.
1925-1926: Chanel introduces the tweed skirt suit and the little black dress
Capel wasn’t Chanel’s only male muse. One of the brand’s staples, the tweed skirt suit, was born out of her relationship with the Duke of Westminster. The two vacationed together in the Scottish Highlands, where sportsmen favored suits made from knitted wool. Chanel made the wool knit lighter to make it more feminine, and studded the colorful skirt suits with fur trim, metallic threads, and buttons adorned with lions, a reference to the designer’s astrological sign.
John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy in 1963.
The most famous of Chanel’s tweed skirt suits belonged to Jackie Kennedy. With navy trim and a double-breasted silhouette, this cotton-candy pink suit was the one she wore the day her husband was assassinated. She refused to take off her blood-stained suit when Lyndon B. Johnson was inaugurated as president. “Let them see what they’ve done,” she reportedly told an aide.
As First Lady, Kennedy was encouraged to wear only American designers, but she found a loophole by having Park Avenue boutique Chez Ninon tailor a Chanel suit for her using materials provided by the French brand.
In the 1920s, Chanel pioneered the flapper look. Reversing the hourglass silhouette of the Edwardian and Belle Époque eras, her loose, beaded shift dresses encouraged freedom of movement. In 1926, she introduced what is now commonly known as the “Little Black Dress,” whose simple, practical design was compared to Henry Ford’s Model T. During the Jazz Age, women began to adopt more masculine fashions, and Chanel’s “Ford” dresses became fashionable with their flat-cut necklines and dropped waists.
The moniker “LBD” comes from Chanel’s famous line, “A Scheherazade is easy, a little black dress is hard.” Even today, the little black dress, Chanel or otherwise, is widely considered a closet staple.
A 1926 illustration of a model wearing a black Chanel dress, called “The Ford.”
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1933: Chanel introduces the camellia motif
Camellias are often associated with Chanel, appearing on brooches, scarf prints and even packaging. The designer’s love of flowers dates back to her early years, when she first read Alexandre Dumas’ La Traviata. Chanel identified with the story’s heroine, a prostitute who wore a white camellia as a symbol of freedom.
The camellia was used in Chanel’s Fall 1992 Couture collection.
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Chanel first officially introduced the camellia in a design in 1933, when the flower adorned a black suit with white trim. Today, the brand still frequently uses camellia, with the label’s former creative director, Virginie Viard, using it as the centerpiece of the set for Chanel’s fall 2023 fashion show.
At the 2023 Met Gala, honoring Karl Lagerfeld, several stars wore dresses designed with camellia motifs: Anne Hathaway wore a custom dress studded with Versace’s signature safety pins, while Cardi B wore a latex dress by Cheng Peng Studio covered in oversized, 3D camellias.
1955: Chanel launches the 2.55
Chanel 2.55 bag.
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The quilted flap bag is another signature Chanel product: although the brand was already producing handbags in the 1920s, it wasn’t until 1955 that the 2.55, named after the year of its birth, was launched.
While many Chanel bags today have a double C-lock (added by Lagerfeld), the 2.55 has a rectangular “Mademoiselle” lock, named after Coco, who never married. The chain strap is also different from modern versions, which are usually interwoven with leather. Like many Chanel staples, the 2.55 was designed for both fashion and function. The bag’s shoulder strap allowed for hands-free carrying at a time when top-handle bags were the norm. Chanel borrowed the 2.55’s signature quilting from stablemen, who often wore puffy, patterned jackets.
heritage
Chanel died in 1971 at the age of 87. Like her successor Lagerfeld, she continued designing until her death. Today, Chanel remains synonymous with luxury, and many of the products she pioneered are still considered the Holy Grail of fashion.
Katharine Hepburn in a promotional image for “Coco.”
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Chanel has been the subject of movies, TV shows and even stage productions, starting with the musical “Coco,” starring Katharine Hepburn, which premiered a year before Chanel’s death, and her life has also been featured in a ballet, “Coco Chanel: The Life of a Fashion Icon,” due to premiere in Hong Kong in 2023.
In film, Chanel has been played by actresses like Audrey Tautou and Shirley MacLaine, and more recently, Juliette Binoche played the couturier in the Apple TV+ miniseries “The New Look,” which charts the rise of Christian Dior and sheds light on Chanel’s Nazi ties.
While Chanel is searching for a new creative director following Viard’s departure in 2024, the brand remains a financial success: The luxury house reported total revenue of $19.7 billion last year, up 16% at comparable rates and with double-digit growth in all categories, with price increases alone accounting for a 9% increase.