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.
Coco Chanel
One of Chanel's longest enduring associations was with Misia Sert, a member of the bohemian elite in Paris and wife of Spanish painter José-Maria Sert. It is said that theirs was an immediate bond of kindred souls, and Misia was attracted to Chanel by "her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled everyone". Both women were convent schooled, and maintained a friendship of shared interests and confidences. They also shared drug use. By 1935, Chanel had become a habitual drug user, injecting herself with morphine on a daily basis, a habit she maintained to the end of her life. According to Chandler Burr's "The Emperor of Scent", Luca Turin related an apocryphal story in circulation that Chanel was "called Coco because she threw the most fabulous cocaine parties in Paris".