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That same decade, she debuted her perfume, Chanel No. In 1926, she introduced her first little black dress, reclaiming a color that had once been reserved for mourning and working-class women. It was there that she learned to sew as well as appreciate the classic pairing of black and white as worn by the nuns. Following the death of her mother, her father left her in an orphanage where she lived until the age of 18. However, Chanel was not born into a life of glamour.
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Over the next six decades, Coco Chanel would become a pivotal designer of both fashionable casual wear and Paris haute couture as well as an icon and arbiter of 20th-century style with her bob haircut and pearls. She followed this success with a couture house, opened in 1915 in Biarritz. Soon she added a sportswear store in the Normandy resort town of Deauville, where Coco set the tone for her defining sense of style - traditionally masculine garments reimagined for feminine shapes, made from simple jersey fabric.Įffortless and elegant, her designs promoted comfort and grace in women’s wear that had been dominated in the previous century by complicated layers of fabric and cumbersome corsets. The boutique drew the attention of the Parisian fashion elite who popularized her wide-brimmed Chanel Modes hats. The first Chanel shop was opened in 1910 in Paris on rue Cambon by the young milliner Gabrielle Chanel (1883–1971), who had picked up the nickname “Coco” while working as a club singer.