---

Pierre B – A Journey through the Fashion World

Chanel; A Double C Mystery

Chanel is a company with a grand reputation that is favored among the elite all over the world. The products are held to an extremely high standard and have impressed fashion critics for over a century. “Keep your heels, head, and standards high” was something Chanel creator, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, said as she continued to relieve women of their strict clothing roles and boundaries and freed them into suits of more masculine presentation (which she gracefully turned into the feminine norm). Consisting of 6 seasonal collections per year, the Chanel repertoire extends decades back and has displayed everything from head-to-toe fur suits to a hula hoop bag which debuted in the spring-summer 2013 ready-to-wear show. 

All that falls under the Chanel name is branded with an interlocking C, what this logo means or whether or not it is a monogram has been subject to debate for years. One possibility is that this stood for Capel and Chanel or Capel and CoCo. Arthur Edward “Boy” Capel was an unfaithful lover to Coco Chanel who financed her first shop and continued an affair with her, even during his marriage, until he passed away in 1919. After his death, which she greatly mourned, the infamous little black dress supposedly came to be, as black was the color of mourning. Another possibility is that the interlocked C was linked to a monastery in Aubazine, France where Coco Chanel was rumored to have been inspired by the stained glass windows.

Her humble beginnings in that monastery in France surrounded by a dull palette of black and white led to the much later creation of a wide variety of designs implementing these colors. Her first selection of products were hats, which she first sold at 21 Rue Cambon in Paris in a shop known as “Chanel Modes”. Stores were opened a few years later in Deauville and Biarritz, both cities also located in France. In 1926, a simple but elegant black dress designed by Coco Chanel appeared in American Vogue. Vogue dubbed it “Chanel’s Ford” after the Model T ford. However, business soon went from booming to struggling, and the depression forced her to shut down her entire business in 1939. Later, she left to Switzerland and didn’t return to the fashion world until 1954. When Coco Chanel re-entered the fashion industry in 1954 the American press loved her style, while the French press were reportedly extremely hard on her. 

Although Coco Chanel passed away 17 years after her return, her legacy lives on through Chanel’s plethora of ever-changing designs. Eventually, in 1983, Karl Lagerfeld was appointed artistic director of Chanel and continued to fill this role until his death in 2019. He is best known for re-modernizing Chanel while preserving its tweed and jersey classic designs. In line with both Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld’s views for the brand, Virginie Viard is now creative director for Chanel as the brand continues to remain at the top of the fashion “food chain”.