Gabrielle Chanel

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel is the most famous and influential fashion designer of the 20th century. After her lover financed a millinery shop in 1911, Chanel went on to open a fashion boutique in Deauville in 1913. There, among the vacationing rich, she sold simple, but expensive, sportswear made of humble materials, like jersey. In 1919, she opened her Paris couture house at 31 Rue Cambon. The essence of the Chanel Look was Chanel herself. She eschewed colorful, ultra-feminine fashions and instead developed a dandyish personal style based on upper-class men's clothing. Speaking of herself in the third person, she told her friend, Salvador Dali, "Chanel always dressed like the strong independent male she had dreamed of being. She set women free because she had suffered too long from not being free herself."