VIVE LA WEAVE

Chanel's latest high jewellery collection celebrates the innovation that put her squarely in the pantheon of legendary fashion designers.

- MINDY TEH

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel was always cut from a different cloth. Her insouciant cool, irreverence towards the conventional and knack for sheer innovation had the ability to shock and awe.

The former milliner first revolutionised the hat, stripping away any excesses. As one of the first female fashion designers, she set out to free women from the confines of the corset and provocatively shortened hems. She created the little black dress, the colour black once reserved only for the help. She audaciously mixed costume and precious jewellery freely.

Most notably, Chanel crafted women's clothing from menswear fabrics such as jersey and tweed, lending her apparel instant comfort and practicality. The tweed inspiration, in particular, stemmed from her love affair with the Duke of Westminster, then the richest man in England. Even while he cloaked Chanel in luxury, she was fond of borrowing his clothes, particularly his tweed jackets, reinterpreting them to suit the feminine form. Coco may have courted controversy but her ingenuity came not only from a preternatural sense of style but also sheer survival instinct.