In Salzburg, Austria, the lady with a love of camellias crossed paths with a hotel lift operator, who\u2019s uniform gave her the initial idea for a four-pocket jacket. It is said that her lover at the time, the Duke of Westminster, was responsible for her rather British taste for tweed. It was no surprise that the couturier ended up opting for this very same material: a lesser-washed wool that allowed for greater flexibility and softness. The skin is invited to get cozy with the jacket through the further inclusion of silk, taffetas, and jersey fabrics. The perfectionism behind Mademoiselle\u2019s avant-garde approach drove her to open up the fashion world to a little jacket with crisp lines.<\/p>\n
With its straight cut, the jacket is structured in such a way as to give a greater ease to movement: Chanel wanted women to be gracious, for them to glide along with every step they took. The front of the garment is constructed out of straight yarn, without a fastener, making the fabric mean everything. The back is divided up by a single line of stitches. The secret to the garment\u2019s perfect fit? A gold chain hemming the inner lining, that has since become one of the design house\u2019s signatures. To this day, they are still the only ones to employ this technique to achieve such an impeccable verticality.<\/p>\n
For Gabrielle Chanel, everything needed to serve a purpose, and that purpose needed to be a practical one. Her mindset is poured out into each part of her masterpiece. The four pockets had to be perfectly measured to be able to contain a handkerchief, a piece of paper, or a lighter. As for the sleeves, fitted to the height of the shoulders, their incommodiously narrow appearance is just an illusion: thanks to a piece of fabric placed just under the armpits, the arm\u2019s movements are liberated from the rigidity of the rest of the garment.<\/p>\n
Corded braids are also present and accounted for: free and inventive, they are the physical manifestation of Chanel\u2019s imagination. Each one of them is distinct, for \u201con principal, I always invent, I don\u2019t do anything that already exists. I consecrate myself to the unique\u201d Gabrielle said. In gold, silk, or silver, they are nevertheless always in line with the buttons. Treated like precious gems, the fasteners have appeared in several different incarnations, the designer\u2019s favorite being a lion\u2019s head.<\/p>\n
This little jacket still hasn\u2019t ceased to enchant. Karl Lagerfeld has adeptly managed to maintain its rich heritage all while leaving his own personal mark: the buttons\u2019 designs have expanded to include the double-C logo, four-leaf clovers, and camellias with different shades each season. From time to time, the little black jacket has even been known to appear in different colors depending on the season. But all in all, it is a special kind of eternal youth that continues to drive this piece, the most copied in the world, forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Salzburg, Austria, the lady with a love of camellias crossed paths with a hotel lift operator, who\u2019s uniform gave her the initial idea for a four-pocket jacket. It is said that her lover at the time, the Duke of Westminster, was responsible for her rather British taste for tweed. It was no surprise that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,21346,6],"tags":[11527,33362,11526,11528,11530,11524,11523,38,34,11531,11525,11529,200,23335,25846],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion-accessories","category-pret-a-porter-2-en","category-ready-to-wear","tag-brand-dna","tag-cambon-en","tag-chanel-brand","tag-chanel-codes","tag-chanel-featured-products","tag-chanel-history","tag-clemence-poesy-chanel","tag-fashion","tag-icon","tag-iconic-products","tag-identity-chanel","tag-news-chanel","tag-quote","tag-story-en","tag-tweed-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n