INTELLIGENCE

Founded as House of Chanel in 1909, Chanel is a French luxury fashion brand that specialises in haute couture and ready-to-wear clothes, luxury goods, and fashion accessories. Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, the company’s founder, was known for catering to women's taste for elegance with simply designed clothes and jewellery that replaced the over-designed and constrictive clothes and accessories of the 19th-century fashion.

The company revolutionised fashion by replacing structured-silhouettes, based upon corsets, with garments that were functional and at the same time flattering to the woman's figure. Following Chanel’s death in 1971 the brand stagnated somewhat but was revived when legendary creative director Karl Lagerfeld was appointed in 1983.

Lagerfeld led the brand, which sales of around €10billion, until his death in February 2019 at the age of 85. He has been replaced by his long-standing right-hand woman Virginie Viard.