In 1983, more than a decade after the death of Coco Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld took over her fashion house, making it bigger, brasher and brighter. In the process he transformed the business into one of the world’s most profitable luxury labels.
To rescue a former superbrand that had been surviving on perfume sales alone was a monumental task. Yet attempting to emulate the legendary Coco would have been suicidal: this was a woman whose creations had been worn by Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and Lauren Bacall. Instead, Lagerfeld took its core elements — the tweed jackets, the pearls, the quilted bags — and manipulated them into a more modern, raw and fresh product. As he said: “My job is to reinvent Chanel, so
