Coco Chanel (1883-1971) is the most famous fashion designer, and her work changed women's fashion.

History of Women's Fashion in the Twentieth Century

Upper class people dominated fashion during the period from1900 to 1909. Only rich people enjoyed high fashion because the tradition of hand craftsmanship was slow, detailed work, and it was expensive. Therefore, most people could not afford trendy clothes. Rich people controlled fashion because fashion was a symbol of social status. The formal style was extraordinary, and ladies wore many clothes--for example, chemise, corset, corset cover, drawers, a flannel petticoat, and one or more cotton petticoats.

About 1908, a new style of fashion began. The concept of the new style was the natural woman's figure. The new fashion expressed the new status of women. Women started to enter a variety of careers and new ways of living. During World War I, women took over men's jobs, and the traditional pompous clothes disappeared. After the war, the development of fashion was influenced by the new attitude of women.

Chanel's Childhood

Gabrielle Chanel was born in France, on August 19, 1883. The Chanel family did not have money, and they lived in a poor house in a narrow street. In the big cities of France, the industrial revolution had brought about a modern lifestyle, but the Chanels did not live in a modern city. When Gabrielle was twelve, her mother died, and her father disappeared. She had two sisters and two brothers, and she and her sisters went to an orphanage, and her brothers went to a farm and became child laborers. Gabrielle had been staying in the orphanage for six years. She was a fierce, pretty, and restless girl, and she knew that she was different from others.

The Life Work of Coco Chanel

Chanel was a woman of ambition and determination. She introduced simple, elegant, relaxed, and functional clothes that express the aspirations of women in the Twentieth Century. She borrowed ideas from men's clothes and created clothes for modern women. In May, 1916, Chanel introduced jersey suits. A jersey is a soft and elasticated knit that was used for undergarments before she introduced her suits because its appearance and its weave were difficult to handle. Because of war time circumstances, Chanel adopted a jersey as couture fabric. The suits eliminated the waistline, and had a simplified elegance. For the first time in women's fashion, women showed their bare ankles in the streets. People were surprised by the new style, but the revolutionary use of jersey was successful. The Chanel suits fitted in people's lifestyle, and it was not just a trendy fashion. Chanel said, "I make fashion women can live in, breath in, feel comfortable in and look younger in." The concept of her fashion was the antithesis of the concept of high fashion in the past. Her unique sense of fashion also guided her jewelry designs. She combined real and imitation gems. Her famous perfume, Chanel No.5, was the first designer's brand perfume.

Chanel lost her parents when she was young, and she did not spent childhood in a rich and elegant environment. However, she escaped from poor circumstances, and she created revolutionary women's clothes. She was an inspirational person because she broke the traditional forms of women's clothes, and she contributed to a change in women's sense through her clothes. We can learn something from her life. For example, we can overcome poverty, and listen to our instincts. Chanel knew that she was different from others, so it is important to believe in yourself and try hard to make your dreams come true. Chanel created basic forms of modern fashion, and many designers had inherited the basic concept of simplicity and elegance from Chanel. After she got old, she said, "I must tell you something of significance. Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. The problem of fashion in 1925 was different. Women were just beginning to go to work in offices. I inspired the cutting of the hair short because it goes with the modern woman. To the woman going to work, I said to take off the bone corset, because women cannot work while they are imprisoned in a corset."

A legendary name in fashion, Chanel is today synonymous both with its founder, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel and its artistic director since 1983, Karl Lagerfeld. Chanel herself - who was born in an orphanage, was self-taught and who first established her house in 1913 - is perhaps the most important fashion designer of the 20th century. Her pioneering use of sportswear for high fashion in the '20s, her little black dresses, her costume jewellery, taste for suntanning and appropriation of male dress are the stuff of fashion legend. Her Chanel No. 5 perfume (invented in 1921), is a confirmed 'classic', as are her softly-structured tweed suit and quilted leather handbags (both developed in the '50s).

When Chanel died in 1971 she left a rich legacy of house codes which are today boldly reinvented by Karl Lagerfeld. Mademoiselle's favourite pearls turn up, outsized, as little evening bags; tweed is transformed into fluffy leggings and matching berets; a love of the sporty, outdoors life is expressed via Chanel-branded snowboards and surfboards. At Chanel, Lagerfeld heads up one of Paris' few remaining haute couture salons; in July 2002 the company, which is owned by the Wertheimer family, secured the future of its couture business by acquiring five specialist workshops, including Lesage, the prestigious embroidery com¬pany.

Chanel is today nothing if not a commercial powerhouse and in December 2004 the company opened a multi-floored new store in the Ginza shopping district of Tokyo that includes a restaurant, Beige Tokyo, and a glassy facade fitted with twinkling lights that resemble the brand's famous tweed. In May 2005 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened an exhibition devoted to Chanel's historic innovations, featuring designs by both the house founder and its present incumbent. Despite this grand heritage, what Coco and Lagerfeld have in common above all is relish for the present times and for the future. As Chanel herself once said, "I am neither in the past nor avant-garde. My style follows life."