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Gabrielle Chanel, An Inmortal Style Director: Gilles Nadeau She rewrote the rulebook, opened the first boutique, launched sportswear and fake jewellery, discovered jersey cloth, and made the sweater fashionable. She taught us that it is not the little collar that defines fashion, but something hard to wear such as a completely unadorned black dress. Gabrielle Chanel inspired a new style and became a legend in her own lifetime. Her success is as much due to her talent as to her appetite for work The soft jacket of a lady's suit weighted down by a slender gold chain, a silk blouse matching the lining, the first tee-shirts, a black dress with a camellia as sole accessory... “The richer a dress is, the poorer it becomes" she used to say. Her simple but perfect collections of clothes were rapidly to become modern woman's favorite uniform, with Jackie Kennedy in November 1963 in her pink bloodstained suit as the shattered symbol of it all. From the two "C"s - intertwined symbols of the success of her house which still today, 30 years after her death, authenticate bags, perfumes, scarves, buttons, and other essential accessories - through to her brilliant convictions, all of her ideas have outlasted her and are still relevant, right down to the smallest detail. "I could never manage to exploit all my ideas", she said, and her much copied, plagiarized and exploited style has become a phenomenon. “Once it exists, an invention is made to be lost in anonymity", she stressed. In the 20s, Gabrielle Chanel, who instigated what was to become the profession of fashion designer, tired of holding her bag in her hand, added a strap to carry it over her shoulder. This is symbolic of her art of turning to her advantage things that prevented her from progressing and sums up her philosophy of life which was dominated by a lofty idea of freedom. Thus, refusing to be hampered by conventions, this unique woman with a solitary destiny freed women from received ideas “True success is fatal" she would say. Hers gave her immortality.
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