3 women who shaped the fashion industry

Coco Chanel. Elsa Schiaparelli. Vera Wang.

You probably know their names, but do you know how they shaped the fashion industry? This is what Coo-Mon invites you to discover in this blog post, highlighting 3 great inspiring fashion designers.

Coco Chanel liberates women silhouette

How can we not to mention Coco Chanel, when talking about the big names in women's fashion? Real name Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, Coco Chanel is a great seamstress and influential businesswoman of the 20th century. Her haute couture designs cross time and borders, and are still considered symbols of French elegance today.

Inspired by clean, sober and structural lines, she developed a style specific to Maison Chanel. She is known in particular for the iconic little black dress, her quilted bag with gold chain and her fragrance lines.

A tomboy schoolgirl in pants-polo-cardigan, she manipulates female and male dress codes with virtuosity. She borrows elements of the male costume from England (sweater, beret, and tweed wool fabric), which she discards in suits and blouses.

Thanks to her solid reputation, her pieces quickly became classics of the feminine wardrobe of the 20s and 30s..

Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel revolutionized women's fashion by introducing and imposing her avant-garde style. Simple but refined, and no frills. Unlike the extravagant outfits of the time, which constrained the woman's body. Goodbye froufrou, feathers and volumes; comfort predominates now. She shakes up the standards and relieves the woman's body with her androgynous figure. The waist is released, and the skirt is shortened to the knees.

Coco Chanel greatly contributed to the design of current clothing styles, deconstructing archaic and outdated dress codes. She placed comfort and simplicity at the heart of her creative process, while restoring nobility to fashion accessories. Her fashion philosophy suggests wearing sober and classic outfits, to be embellished with a hat, jewelry, or other accessories.

Discover Coo-Mon women's accessories

 

Vera Wang draws the way to her success

A name well known to brides and future brides.

Vera Wang is a New York stylist of Chinese origin, known for her wedding dresses.

Having forecast herself for a sporting career, fate turned her to the fashion industry in her early twenties. After being refused entry to the US Olympic Figure Skating Team, she decides to pursue a career in fashion. She started at Vogue, as a fashion editor. Then joined upscale brand Ralph Lauren as Director of Accessory Design.

Like many entrepreneurs, it is in a personal process that she identifies a business opportunity. While preparing for her wedding, she may find that the supply of wedding dresses is limited ... and not to her liking. She then draws the dress of her dreams, then asks a seamstress to tailor it. This is how the first Vera Wang wedding dress was born.

Despite a diversification into ready-to-wear, eyewear, perfumes and jewelry, the wedding remains its trademark. She reinvents the market by presenting her collections of wedding dresses each season, at the same pace as the prestigious fashion houses. Her designs earned her a place on the Council of American Fashion Designers, which in 2005 awarded her the prize for the best women's clothing.

Weddings are an important stage in life, where customers expect an adaptive and high-quality service. It is by responding to this demand that Vera Wang becomes the first choice of the most fashionable brides-to-be. We can count among her famous clients: Victoria Beckham, Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys or Mariah Carey.

Coo-Mon also offers its customers the possibility of customizing their wedding in their image, and offers a service of creation of tailor-made accessories.

Discover Coo-Mon's wedding offer

Vera Wang’s journey is particularly inspiring and hopeful.

A closing door is a sign that fate wishes to lead us elsewhere. We must humbly accept the shortcuts, U-turns and deviations on our route. Because they lead to the realization of our talents and the realization of our ambition. So, if your intuition is calling you, pay attention to it.

 

Elsa Schiaparelli gives fashion an artistic dimension

A provocative, daring artist with a fertile imagination. This is how we might describe her. The Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli sets up the workshops of her haute couture house in Paris from the 1930s to the 1950s. For the record, it is in her premises that the young maker of models (and future great couturier) Hubert de Givenchy takes his first steps.

The one who learnt to sew after an unforgettable visit to Paul Poiret’s workshops, she has always had an avant-garde vision of fashion. Her first attempts: a sweater with large trompe-l'oeil bows and a sweater decorated with African patterns, snakes or hearts. But it is above all for her Shocking Pink, a captivating and distinctive shade, that she owes her notoriety.

Elsa Schiaparelli sees fashion as an art. Described as a "concept designer", she alters functions, and plays with shapes and colours. Caring little about social codes, she does not hesitate to shock to make people talk about her "creations". The designer regularly collaborates with her artist friends, who create for her patterns, objects, and accessories that accentuate the unique style of her creations. Jean Cocteau worked in particular on models of coats, evening wear and jewelry. Conquered by the surrealist inspiration of Salvador Dali, their artistic relationship gave birth to legendary pieces: the suits with drawer pockets, the shoe-hat, the lobster-print dress, the skeleton dress, the perfume bottle Le Roy soleil, etc..

Fashion is for her a medium of artistic expression. Her eccentric and nonconformist vision pushes her to innovate continuously. The Schiaparelli fashion shows are real shows with meticulous staging, where she exhibits her full creativity. She has also been called on to create costumes for the cinema.

And her creative and innovative contribution does not stop there. During WWII, most of her innovations were based on the functionality of clothing. She makes jumpsuits with a maxi pocket designed to hold the equivalent of a handbag, coats with built-in bags, and convertible dresses.  

Subsequently, she launched the Constellation collection, which includes reversible, lightweight and foldable clothing and accessories for travel.

The name Schiaparelli still inspires haute-couture designers and fashion avant-garde to push the boundaries of reality and political correctness. To deconstruct, create, experiment and innovate… and perhaps create the fashion of tomorrow.

 

It is thanks to the designers of yesterday and today that the fashion industry continues to dazzle us, offering us more models, styles, and colour combinations. Ingrid, Montreal fashion designer and founder of the Coo-Mon’s brand is proud to be part of this generation of women entrepreneurs who believe in their dreams and has the will to fulfill them. It is from this fashion heritage, and the multiculturalism in which she operates that she is inspired to create her fashion accessories. “I had the idea of blending textiles from different origins in one product, so that it looked like what I and others are today: a cultural blend. " Dare the colour with Coo-Mon accessories