Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel is an icon of fashion, and can lay claim to having invented the look of the 20th century. At the height of the Belle Epoque, she stripped women of their corsets and feathers, bobbed their hair, put them in bathing suits and sent them out to get tanned in the sun. She introduced the little black dress; trousers for women; costume jewelry; the exquisitely comfortable suit that became her trademark. Early in the Roaring Twenties, Chanel made the first ever couture perfume - No. 5 - presenting it in the famous little square-cut flagon that, inspired by Picasso and Cubism, became the arch symbol of the Art Deco style. No. 5 remains the most popular scent ever created. This volume, published to accompany a landmark exhibition in Paris, traces the birth and evolution of Chanel's timeless style. Specially commissioned photographs by Julien T. Hamon showcase the clothing, while essays by fashion historians illuminate a period, an event or a theme. Rare archival documents, including portraits of Gabrielle Chanel herself, round out the book.

This fascinating publication presents the roles two men have played in turning a small workshop in nineteenth-century Paris into one of the most successful and recognized brands in the world. Known for both craftsmanship and must-have high design, Louis Vuitton the luxury house was started by its eponymous founder in 1854. The first half of this publication traces the innovations by Vuitton, who turned the little-known guild profession of emballeur (packer) into the foremost luxury trunk maker in Paris, with a clientele that included in his lifetime the French nobility as well as the elite of a prosperous empire. Prime and never-before-seen examples of Vuitton's craftsmanship, along with the fashion that went into them, are the highlights of these chapters. The second half of the book examines the role of Marc Jacobs as Louis Vuitton's creative director (since 1997), who took the Louis Vuitton house into a new era with a series of collaborations with artists and designers-such as Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and Stephen Sprouse-as well as designing a line of highly successful and desired clothing for the company. By examining two divergent but often similar careers one hundred years apart, Louis Vuitton / Marc Jacobs is not only a layered study of the evolution of a luxury brand in the past 150 years but also a celebration of technical and design innovations in the new century.