Chanel

There is something wonderful about how comprehensively Mlle Chanel informed the way women dress. Clothes have changed greatly since she changed everything, but no one person has been behind it all, and it has never been so sudden or so definitive as was her contribution.

It came from a practicality, and a simple conception of how the form actually was. Any "look", fundamentally, is just a different comment on the form, but her comment seems so irrefutable. This is the form as we see it today.

This is a quick watercolour that I did, copying a photograph I saw in a book. It is from the 1960 Autumn/Winter collection, but in the shot, which was styled in 2004 by Karl Lagerfeld, it looks as striking and modern as anything else I have seen.