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Straightforward, courageous and yet never too much - no other designer label embodies the ideals of emancipated women in its style as much as Chanel.
It all began when Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel opened the French fashion brand Chanel with her boutique in Deauville in 1913. Chanel defied the prevailing trends including corsets and floor-length dresses and stood for a timeless concept of elegance. She is considered the inventor of fashion jewellery and the "little black dress".
In 1909 the trained seamstress Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel began to sell plain hats to wealthy Parisian ladies. Her hats, which for her friends and customers were certainly a pleasant contrast to the opulent hat creations of the time, were soon in great demand. In her boutique she began to present her fresh designs: Similar to her initial hats, Coco Chanel's women's fashion was much less stiff and opulent. It was probably the simple and often androgynous cuts that appealed to the taste of young and emancipated women - they felt freed from the ballast of excessive embellishment. Even today, large parts of the collections are created in Coco Chanel's former studio in the Rue Cambon in Paris.
With the Little Black, Coco Chanel invented one of the most popular garments of all the following decades. No less decisive for success was the collarless tweed costume, which has been reinterpreted again and again since 1925. Chanel has also created classics in cosmetics and accessories: The iconic red lipstick, for example, the Chanel N°5 perfume or the universally acclaimed 2.55 handbag with gold chain.
It's no wonder that influential and famous women have always turned to Chanel: even in Coco Chanel's day, icons such as Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly, Brigitte Bardot and Elizabeth Taylor belonged to Chanel's avowed followers. Under the creative direction of Lagerfeld, Vanessa Paradis and Keira Knightley, for example, acted as testimonials for Chanel. The models Inès de la Fressange and Claudia Schiffer also achieved great fame as Lagerfeld's muses.
After the death of Coco Chanel, it took the brand several years before it returned to its former glory under designer Karl Lagerfeld. For almost 40 years, Lagerfeld's interpretations of Chanel fascinated the brand again and again, and led it into a new era. Although Karl Lagerfeld and Coco Chanel never met in person, he was regarded as the saviour of the Chanel brand with his modern and daring pieces from his second collection on, and he still had a rather old-fashioned image until the 1970s. His successor, Virginie Viard, had been working with Lagerfeld since the 1990s and showed up at his side in 2018 for the presentation of the Chanel Cruise Collection 2019. Three months after his death, Viard presented her first own collection for Chanel, the Resort Collection 2020. Although Viard's designs, in contrast to Lagerfeld's hard geometric shapes, are considered softer, she skilfully carries on the double legacy of Chanel and Lagerfeld - a demanding task that hardly anyone could be equal to.
Here in the online shop of Vite EnVogue you can find selected designer second hand clothing, including many classics from Chanel. The discreet and noble pieces never go out of fashion in their timeless elegance and represent a long-term investment. With a Designer Second Hand Costume you will definitely cut a great figure. Whether for day or evening, accessories and even key pieces like the little black one can be found in the Designer Second Hand assortment at Vite EnVogue. And don't miss the iconic collarless tweed jackets, which you can get from us in top condition. Order your favourite item immediately at Vite EnVogue!
