Chanel The Legend of an Icon

The Classics Collection

Chanel: The Legend of an Icon

"Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance."¿ Gabrielle Chanel

More than any other designer of her era, Gabrielle Chanel had the ability to predict the evolution of contemporary fashion. Self-inventor extraordinaire, she revolutionized the lifestyle of her time by inventing a modern concept of luxe minimalism, elevating humble fabrics such as jersey and tweed to couture status, giving birth to a new silhouette both sophisticated and discreet, setting her stamp on the twentieth century with her modern spirit of understated luxury.

The house of Chanel represents modern fashion. Under its founder, the style of the modern woman was invented, through the image of Gabrielle Chanel herself. She dressed women to be free, and her emancipated clothes reflected the shifting landscape of society. Her designs fundamentally affected what we wear today, and how we wear it. The work of the house under her successor Karl Lagerfeld has transformed fashion anew: He drew the template for a fashion designer reviving a moribund house with elements from its own history. Just as Chanel created modern fashion, Lagerfeld in turn established the blueprint of the modern fashion house. She reshaped the clothes women wear; he reshaped the industry that makes them.

Assouline has revisited its best-selling Ultimate volume Chanel: The Impossible Collection in an updated, new format that allows readers to easily browse through the history of the Maison over and over again. In Chanel: The Legend of an Icon, journalist Alexander Fury¿s text and selection of one hundred pieces meet archival and contemporary imagery, creating the definitive compendium on Chanel¿s rich legacy where the timeless Little Black Dress, impeccably simple tweed suit and two-tone pump meet abundant strands of faux pearls and stones, diamond-quilted leather handbags and apothecary-style perfume bottles.

About the author:

Alexander Fury is a fashion journalist, author, and critic. He is Fashion Features Director of AnOther Magazine and Men¿s Critic for the Financial Times. From 2016 to 2018, he was the first Chief Fashion Correspondent at T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and from 2013 to 2016, he was fashion editor of The Independent, i, and The Independent on Sunday newspapers. In 2018, Fury received the Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. His other books include Dior: Catwalk (Thames and Hudson, 2017); Catwalking: Photographs by Chris Moore (Laurence King, 2017); Dior by Gianfranco Ferré (Assouline, 2018); Montblanc: Inspire Writing (Assouline, 2021) and Burberry (Assouline, 2023).