Word of the Day
Coco (KOH-koh)
Common clue: Designer Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel (August 19, 1883 - January 10, 1971) was a French fashion designer and perfume creator.
Popularly known as Coco Chanel or Mademoiselle by her inner circle, she was born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel in the small city of Saumur, France.
Two of her most famous creations the Chanel No. 5 perfume, launched in 1923 and still a classic fragrance today, and the Chanel suit, actually a whole look for women: an elegant outfit with boxy lines, made of pastel pink wool with black trim and gold buttons, worn with large costume-pearl necklaces. She also invented the Little Black Dress. Although other little black dresses existed before Coco Chanel, hers is the one by which they are defined. In 1923, Chanel told Harper's Bazaar that “simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”
The popularity of tanning can be traced to a single moment in 1923. After cruising from Paris to Cannes, designer Coco Chanel stepped off the Duke of Wellington's yacht with a startling suntan. Chanel had apparently gotten too much sun by accident, but the press and fashion world assumed the immensely influential Frenchwoman was making a fashion statement. 'I think she may have invented sunbathing,' Prince Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucigne said. 'At that time, she invented everything.' Soon, daring women in Europe and America were baring their skin to the sun.
[Sources: http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=8373, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel, and http://www.peoples.ru/art/fashion/cutur/chanel/]
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