Coco Chanel

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (1883 to 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman who founded the house that still carries her name. In the years after the First World War she became known for popularising a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style, moving women's clothing away from corseted formality. Her business grew beyond couture clothing into jewellery, handbags and fragrance, and her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, became one of the best known commercial products of the twentieth century, while the interlocked-CC monogram she designed has been in use since the 1920s. Her couture house closed in 1939 when the Second World War began, and she returned to Paris in 1954 to revive it. Her conduct during the German occupation of France, including documented collaboration with the occupiers, remains a serious and well-documented part of her biography.