Chanel ready-to-wear collection
Chanel is a privately held French company founded in 1909 by Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, a former milliner. The Chanel ready-to-wear collection is showcased biannually for spring-summer and autumn-winter seasons during Paris Fashion Week to an audience of media, retailers, buyers, investors, and customers, under the auspices of the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode, which is one of three trade associations affiliated with the Fédération française de la couture, du prêt-à-porter des couturiers et des créateurs de mode. The House of Chanel is known for liberating women from the corset in the early 20th century and designing fluid, jersey pieces, most notably the little black dress. Chanel died in 1971, Karl Lagerfeld has been the Creative Director since 1983.
Misia Sert
The Serts’ social set included bohemian elites and the upper levels of society. It was a libertine group, rife with emotional and sexual intrigues—all fueled by drug use and abuse. Misia Sert had an enduring association with couturiere Coco Chanel, whom she met at the home of actress Cécile Sorel in 1917. Sert provided Chanel with the emotional support the bereaved woman needed following the death of her lover, Arthur Capel, on 22 December 1919, in an automobile accident. It is said that theirs was an immediate bond of like souls, and Sert was attracted to Chanel by "her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled everyone." Both women, convent bred, maintained a friendship of shared interests, confidences and drug use.