Coco Chanel
As 1971 began, Chanel was 87 years old, tired, and ailing. She carried out her usual routine of preparing the spring catalogue. She had gone for a long drive the afternoon of Saturday, 9 January. Soon after, feeling ill, she went to bed early. She died on Sunday, 10 January 1971, at the Hotel Ritz, where she had resided for more than 30 years.
Her funeral was held at the Église de la Madeleine; her fashion models occupied the first seats during the ceremony and her coffin was covered with white flowers—camellias, gardenias, orchids, azaleas and a few red roses. She died in her infamous style, announcing: "You see, this is how you die."
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."