Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto

A major retrospective of the life and work of Coco Chanel. Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel is an icon of fashion, and can lay claim to having invented thelook of the 20th century. At the height of the Belle Époque, she stripped women of theircorsets and feathers, bobbed their hair, put them in bathing suits and sent them out toget tanned in the sun. She introduced the little black dress; trousers for women; costumejewelry; the exquisitely comfortable suit that became her trademark. Early in the RoaringTwenties, Chanel made the first ever couture perfume – No. 5 – presenting it in thefamous little square-cut flagon that, inspired by Picasso and Cubism, became the archsymbol of the Art Deco style.