Coco 'Gabrielle Bonheur' Chanel.
Personally, if I am being honest, I think I owe my discovery and genuine adoration for fashion to this very icon. Even for a student such as myself, I find that it is traditional yet timeless designers such as Chanel that inspire us to do so much risk taking in fashion today.
Chanel, not only a beautiful and iconic woman, but she was also a daring one, a woman that took her generation by the brass and changed it for the better, it's almost like the factt that she couldn't go out and work for herself and be her own person, she had to be someone else's first, made her feel the need to rebel against the entire sex and free women everywhere from the tight grasp of such a sexist imprisonment, and instead of going about it threw politics, she chose clothes.
Coco Chanel didn't\pay any attention to what women were expected to wear, instead she focused on what they shouldn't and what made her feel comfortable, ignoring all traditions around her, she created a world of exquisite designs and a very, for the time, individual style.
For a brief period of time she was a hat designer for private clients with whom she made acquaintance with threw Etienne Balsan; the rich lover she lived with for while. This hat making then turned into a small boutique business which eventually branched into casual and sportswear, and then finally thanks to the funding of her first love Arthur Capel 'Boy' (a wealthy business man from England Chanel began an affair with who sadly died in a motoring accident) she opened her fist fashion house. "Maison De Couture Chanel".
To me Chanel isn't just a designer or someone that once had an idea and did something about it, she is an inspiration and to me iconic. She changed the fashion world as we know it, and even today her key ideas and style is seen all over every street we live on. Take the 2.55 bag for example is something that made a statement by itself, and her first collection tugged on so many heartstrings that it was not surprising ''Maison De Couture Chanel'' became such a success.
The key to being part of Coco to me is not just the tweed suits with braided edging, or even the striped blouse from one of her many trips with Boy to the seaside where she watched fisherman bring in there catch at the end of the day. Its the way a Chanel outfit shares her true love for life with you, and the romances she was having not only with the gentlemen in her life but also each and every texture, silouette and idea she was working with. Her creations just oused elegance and had an almost french etiquette about them. It's like she was almost being polite with her fashion rebelion. Coco may have been a head of her time, but she certainly got there in style.
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