Chanel Dies at the Ritz: Fashion's Revolutionary
She was fifty-eight when she launched Chanel No. 5. Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel had remade women's fashion by then — jersey fabrics, short hair, the little black dress — but the perfume was what lasted longest. She closed her fashion house during World War II and reopened it in 1954 at seventy-one. The 1954 collection was savaged by the French press and loved by American buyers. She kept working until she died, in the Ritz Hotel in Paris, where she'd lived for thirty-four years. She was 87.
January 10, 1971
55 years ago
What Else Happened on January 10
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