Gabrielle Chanel’s birth coincided with the birth of cinema and, in a way, their contribution to culture bears some very important similarities. Both Gabrielle and cinema gave a voice to creative needs that up until then could not manifest themselves and be satisfied properly. Both managed to give the world a different take on aesthetic and style. Both explored new areas of visual expression with an artistic flair that brought historical changes to society. Coco, by creating wearable clothes that represented beauty and freedom of choice, and cinema by “building” alternative interpretations of life.

Gabrielle Chanel started her tenure in Hollywood as a stylist but very soon, MGM’s Samuel Goldwyn invited her to manage the red carpet and on screen looks of major movie stars such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Gloria Swanson as a designer too. But Gabrielle’s vision was not as commercially involved as the Hollywood industry was. Gabrielle eventually returned to Paris to focus on the core of her craft, but cinema kept following her on its own. Emblematic actresses of the New Wave like Jeanne Moreau and Delphine Seyrig trusted her to choose the appropriate outfits for them and later on, mesmerized by her strong instincts, mainstream stars Romy Schneider, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda also served as ambassadors of her clothes.

Truth be told, Gabrielle Chanel’s strong connection to cinema is in fact a product of a realization Gabrielle probably came to before anyone else did. Movies constitute art but, above all, a platform for fashion to shine. And it takes a talented person with strategic thinking to figure this out decades before fashion evolved into a multimillion-dollar business.