Unit 2 Assignement 3

Gabrielle “Coco” Bonheur Chanel was born on August 19^th 1883 in Saumur, France. She lived in an orphanage for a lot of her life, after her mother died, which is were she began to sew. In 1913 she opened her first boutique that sold deluxe casual clothes for leisure and sport. As early as 1915, people and the media were already raving over her designs. This allowed her to open another boutique in 1918. Her fashion motivator category would be Designer because she designed a whole new era of clothing for women and released them from their binding corsets. Chanel popularized and invents things such as the little black dress, the Chanel tweed pantsuit, costume jewellery, two toned shoes, and no. 5 perfume. 

Chanel Couture 2012

Chanel Jewelley

Chanel's little black dress, popularized by Audrey Hepburn

Chanel Suit

Chanel Shoes

 Chanel is an example of the trickle down theory. She was at the top of the design world and sent all of her ideas and designs to the public, which they adored. It was such a great and new concept that people didn't even make that many knock offs because it was so different. Later on when it was a huge success people made their own versions of course. I would wear some of the clothing, the suits are for more mature people, but the bags, the shoes, the jewellery, the LBD (little black dress) are already staples in my closet. 

Gabrielle Chanel invented the modern woman. She created a woman that didn't need to be assisted to walk by a man as she struggled in her yards of fabric, she didn't need a maid to help do up her hundred ring corset. Hem lines were shortened, and the body was free'd from the binding clothing. 

Clothing went from this, 

Binding, long dresses, 

With large hats,

To this, shorter hemlines, non-accentuated waists and more modern looking.

This was all thanks to Gabrielle Chanel.

 Gabrielle Chanel was defiantly a fashion innovator. She invented a whole new style of dressing that we still use to this day. She took our whole idea of fashion and made it into something new, and everyone loved it. She truly was thee fashion innovator. I do not think she should be in the fashion motivators list because, yes she did motivate a whole fashion movement, but she did more then that, she created it. The media has popularized this trend by simply just reporting on it. The people did the rest by falling in love with it. For example, just two years after her first boutique opened up Harper's Bazaar  a fashion magazine was raving over her designs "“The woman who hasn't at least one Chanel is hopelessly out of fashion...This season the name Chanel is on the lips of every buyer.”