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Coco chanel impact on fashion
Coco chanel impact on fashion
Coco chanel impact on fashion
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Chanel’s Influence on Fashion
Coco Chanel was one of the most influential fashion designers of the Twentieth Century and she was the first significant female fashion designer. The fashion world was impacted by Chanel’s phoenix like return to fashion after her retirement in 1953. Chanel introduced men and women to practical yet elegant styles. Although Chanel has been deceased for forty-one years her undeniable influence on fashion and women’s roles in society will be remembered for generations to come. Coco Chanel was an iconic designer and continues to inspire men and women around the world.
Like many successful designers Coco had humble beginnings as a hat designer in 1910. Her unique hat styles made her noteworthy in the Parisian millinery market. Coco Chanel opened her first millinery boutique in 1912 Paris. Her fashions were so in demand that she had three boutiques by 1915. Her focus in fashion was on the relatively new area of women’s sportswear. On both sides of the Atlantic, Chanel was making fashion news. Chanel was becoming the leading example of the new woman (Wallach 28). Due to World War I, Chanel’s designs were very simple and elegant so the working wartime woman could obtain and utilize her popular fashions. The fashion world was recognizing Chanel for her luxurious yet practical designs which were unique in the fashion market.
Chanel’s clothes expressed freedom in every piece. She empowered women through fashion. As Chanel said “There are people who have money and people who are rich” expressed how she lived her life. (Dunn). Chanel did not allow her rich and royal clients to treat her with disrespect. Chanel believed she was the best and she required her clients to honor her wishes. In 1920 the silhouet...
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...ows no time, an ease that is still a hallmark of good design (Chaney 374). Coco Chanel still influences women in the fashion world one-hundred and twenty nine years after her birth. Coco Chanel’s influence can be summed up best by her own words “Fashion changes but style endures” (Wallach 336).
Works Cited
Chaney, Lisa. Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life. New York: Viking 2011
Dunn, Jennifer. “Coco Chanel and Fashion” Transcriptions.com 12 Dec 1999 http://transcriptions.english.uscb.edu/archive/topics/infoart/chanel/>
Inoue, Mizuho. “Coco Chanel” pdx.edu 23 February 2012 http://www.wc.pdx.edu/chanel/chanel.html
Picardie, Justine. Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life. New York: Harper Collins, 2010
Wallach, Janet. Chanel: Her Style and Her Life. New York: Doubleday, 1998
...s far as the author is concern, the fact that CoCo Chanel left the Victorian ideas and lived a life of her own made other women admire her. According to the author, clothing design was her star that raised her above other women. It would be better if other women would emulate her character and moral beliefs that should attract other women.
In the article, “The Fashion Industry: Free to Be an Individual” by Hanna Berry, Berry discusses how for decades women have been told to use certain products and that if they used those products they would be beautiful. Women over the years have believed this idea and would purchase items that promised to make them prettier, thinner, smarter and even more loved. However, in reality it was never what they wore on their bodies that helped them be any of those things; but what it did help with was to empower women to become fearless and bold by what they chose to wear on their bodies as a form of expression.
The hems of skirts and dresses rise to a newer, more promiscuous level. Traditional long hair, supposedly the crowning glory of a woman, is cut shoulder-length or shorter. Defined waistlines are lost, giving way to a shapeless and loose fitting style of clothing. Manufacturing of cosmetics has emerged during this decade, and a variety of products have become popular among women. The famous Gabrielle Chanel, more commonly known as “Coco Chanel,” performs her renowned performance in the late 1920s (Yarwood 139).
Many of her concepts were influenced by sportswear and men’s clothing which evolved into a practical effortless style for women. Chanel had a unique way of working. She preferred to work directly on her models rather than sketching. She stood up for what she believed in and paved the way for women in today’s society. She rebelled against the norm of what society wanted women to look
Werle, Simone. Fashionista A Century of Style Icons. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1977. Print.
Coco Chanel, born Gabrielle Bonhuer Chanel, on August 19, 1883 in Saumur, France was an amazing woman who redefined fashion as we know it today. She was a clothing designer who revolutionized the fashion industry with her suits, little black dresses, and avant garde flare. Because of this quickly in her young life she became well know, and rose to be the fashion icon that she is today. From the timeless designs that are still popular to this day, and the sophisticated outfits that can be paired with great accessories Chanel has done it all. When it comes down to it though it was Coco Chanel’s philosophy that “luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it’s not luxury” that lead to her success. (“Coco Chanel”)
Fashion has been around ever since ancient times, since the time of the Romans, it survived the world wars and is yet today a business with rapid changes. Fashion started off as an art form, a way for the riches to show their social status with unique and innovative designs that only they could afford. It was a way to separate the social classes of the society. In this paper I will include the creator of haute couture, and how the following designers developed couture, as well as having leading names in today’s ready-to-wear industry. The list is long, but I chose to focus on the three most important designers of the modern fashion industry.
Haute couture can be referenced back as early as the 1700s. Rose Bertin, the French fashion designer to Queen Marie Antoinette, can be credited for bringing fashion and haute couture to French culture. French leadership in European fashion continued into the 18th century when influence was sourced from art, architecture, music, and fashions of the French court at Versailles were imitated across Europe. Visitors to Paris brought back clothing that was then copied by local dressmakers. Stylish women also ordered fashion dolls dressed in the latest Parisian fashion to serve as models.
Paul Poiret was born on April 20th, 1879 in Paris, France. His contributions to twentieth-century fashion has earned him the title in many people’s eyes as the “King of Fashion”, because he established the principle of modern dress and created the blueprint of the modern fashion industry. Poiret’s designs and ideas led the direction of modern design history. He was born into a working class family and his natural charisma eventually gained him entry into some of the most exclusive ateliers of the Belle Époque. Jacques Doucet, one of the capital’s most prominent couturiers, hired him after seeing promising sketches he had sold to other dressmakers. Furthermore, he was hired by the House of Worth and was put to work to create less glamorous and more practical, simple items because his out of the ordinary designs were not welcomed in open arms by opulent clientele. Despite this experience he was still confident in his ideas and ventured out on his own with money barrowed from his parents and opened a storefront. Moreover, he wanted to promote of the concept of a "total lifestyle” was seen as the first couturier to merge fashion with interior design. His independent work broke the normal conventions of dressmaking, and overturned their underlying presumptions. He liberated the woman’s body from the petticoat and the corset to allow clothing to follow woman’s natural form. Poiret also radically revolutionized dressmaking to switch from the emphasis surrounding the skills of tailoring towards those based on the skills of draping and began to use bright colors. Furthermore, Poiret was apart of the art deco movement, which was surrounded by a period of immense social upheaval, particularly for women, and emergence of technol...
“Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future “(Elegance par. 1). Chanel was a woman who was always seen wearing her own unique fashion. She would never be seen wearing something society would see as something a normal woman would wear; this made her unforgettable (Charles-Roux 5-6). In the beginning, Chanel was only known for creating and designing hats, but she would soon be known for so much more (Charles-Roux 91). Because of Chanel’s new bold ideas, the women’s fashion industry has forever been changed (Charles-Roux 6).
In Deauville, she introduced casual knit dresses which was shockingly different from what others were creating and wearing. “She introduced relaxed dressing expressing the aspirations of the 20th century woman, replacing impractical clothing with functional styling.” (Martin 80). Her designs stressed simplicity and comfort and revolutionized the fashion industry. Within five years of her original use of jersey fabric to create a poor girl look, had attracted the attention of influential wealthy women seeking relief from the prevalent corseted style. In 1954, Chanel presented her new collection of the signature suit. The Chanel suit is a standard garment in modern fashion. “The key to her design philosophy was construction, producing traditional classics outliving each season’s new fashion trends and apparel.” (Martin
Fashion plays an important role in the lives of billions all over the world; people, as part of a status craving society, turn to “fashion capitals” of the world for ways in which to dress and carry themselves. New York, Milan, and Paris are leaders among this fierce industry that the world lusts after. Fashion can speak volumes about ones personality, or also about the condition the world is in at the time. In France, fashion changed rapidly and feverously as the times changed.
The story of Coco Chanel's rise from obscure beginnings to the heights of the fashion world.
middle of paper ... ... It also analyzed the influences of modern dresses. As Palmer and Clark (2005) mentioned earlier, both decades are the classic era in fashion history.
Over shadowing functionality, fashion is human’s next need for embellishment, followed by power or status.“Fashion is, in many ways, like a river.” -Elaine Stone. It is constantly moving forward and changing. Consequently, fueling the fashion business and allowing it to prosper.In other words if there is no change, then there will be no fashion, thus no bussiness. Over the decades millions of brands and designers have been trying to adapt to the rapid and ongoing change in fashion. Those who fail to attune with constant change tend to correlate to failure in business. However, those who do adapt to constant change in fashion have the tendency to succeed in business. Three distinct trend setting designers that have successfully adapted to change are Burberry, Vera Wang and Chanel.