Fashion Icon: Coco Chanel

Anyone who knows me knows I have a bit of a fascination with Chanel. I have seen the Coco Chanel movies – Coco Chanel starring Shirley MacLaine, and Coco Before Chanel staring Audrey Tautou. To me, Coco Chanel is one the my all-time favorite fashion icons.

chanel 8 — Fashion Designer Coco Chanel
(August 19, 1883 – January 10, 1971)
Credit: www.pinterest.com
Source: lolitaabrahamfashion.blogspot.it

I don’t really know what it is about Chanel that fascinates me so (maybe it’s the interlocking CC logo) or when this fascination began, but I do know this – Chanel is equivalent to style and class.

Biography.com has a rather nice bio on Coco Chanel, which details her rise to fame as a fashion designer. She created timeless pieces like her trademark suits and little black dresses, and Karl Lagerfeld has brought Chanel into a new era.

Here are a few highlights about C0co Chanel I thought were noteworthy:

She was born on August 19, 1883 in Saumur, France. I should now be able to remember Coco’s birthday because my oldest niece, Kyra, was born on August 20th.
She opened her first shop in 1910 in Paris’s Rue Cambon, where she first started out by selling hats. She branched out to two other stores and began designing clothes. Her first success as a fashion designer came when she made a dress out of an old jersey on a chilly day.
She launched her first perfume, Chanel No. 5, in the 1920s. Perfume “is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion… that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure,” Chanel once explained.
In 1925 she introduced the Chanel suit, which featured collarless jackets and fitted skirts.
The outbreak of World War II forced Chanel to close her stores and fire her workers. When France was occupied by the Germans, she got involved with a German officer and was interrogated, but never formally charged, for her relationship with the officer. Some viewed her relationship with a Nazi officer was a betrayal of her country and she left France for Switzerland in a self-imposed exile.
At the tender age of 70, she made a grand return to fashion. Although she was panned by the critics, her feminine and easy-fitting designs eventually won over shoppers.
She died on January 10, 1971 – 726 days before I was born (Jan. 6^th) – in her apartment in the Hotel Ritz. In honor of Coco Chanel, hundreds of mourners wore Chanel suits to her funeral, which was held at the Church of the Madeleine.
Karl Lagerfeld took over the reins of the Chanel legacy a little more than a decade later, and has made Chanel one of the most coveted labels to own.

Here are a few photos I pulled from Pinterest that I love. I so want EVERYTHING in these photos!!!