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.
Little black dress
In 1926 Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel published a picture of a short, simple black dress in American "Vogue". It was calf-length, straight and decorated only by a few diagonal lines. "Vogue" called it "Chanel's Ford". Like the Model T, the little black dress was simple and accessible for women of all social classes. "Vogue" also said that the LBD would become "a sort of uniform for all women of taste". This, as well as other designs by the house of Chanel helped disassociate black from mourning, and reinvent it as the uniform of the high-class, wealthy, and chic. As Coco herself proclaimed, "I imposed black; it's still going strong today, for black wipes out everything else around."