Chanel S.A. is the French house of high fashion that specializes in
haute couture and
ready-to-wear clothes,
luxury goods, and fashion accessories.
In her youth, the
couturière Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel gained the soubriquet “Coco” in the course of her career as a chanteuse de café in provincial France. As a fashion designer, Coco Chanel catered to a woman’s taste for elegance in dress, with blouses and suits, trousers and dresses, and jewellry of simple design, that replaced the opulent, over-designed, and constrictive clothes and accessories of the 19th-century fashion. Historically, the
House of Chanel is most famous for the stylistically versatile “
little black dress”, the
perfume No. 5 de Chanel, and the Chanel Suit. As a business enterprise, Chanel S.A. is a
privately held company owned by
Alain Wertheimer and
Gerard Wertheimer, grandsons of
Pierre Wertheimer, an early business partner of Coco Chanel. Commercially, the brands of the House of Chanel have been personified by fashion models and actresses, by women such as
Inès de la Fressange,
Catherine Deneuve,
Carole Bouquet,
Vanessa Paradis,
Nicole Kidman,
Anna Mouglalis,
Audrey Tautou,
Keira Knightley, and
Marilyn Monroe, who epitomise the independent, self-confident
Chanel Girl.