Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and business woman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her design aesthetic in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product. She is the only fashion designer listed on "Time" magazine's . Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.
Marie-Hélène Arnaud
The French designer Coco Chanel launched her first post-war collection at her rue Cambon showroom in Paris on 5 February 1954. For the show she approached Marie-Hélène de Rothschild to ask her friends whether they would appear on the catwalk; Chanel had decided to use "personalities", women "with bosoms and hips – with a real shape – they must have elegance", rather than the sylphlike and anonymous models she had use pre-war whose function was to bring attention to the clothes rather than themselves, following Chanel's precept that just as a watch told the time, a model should "tell the dress".