In Chanel: Couture and Industry, fashion critic and historian Amy de la Hayepresentsthe story of Chanel’s rise from milliner to glamorous global brand.

For over a century, the name Chanel has been synonymous with feminine elegance, modernity, and innovation in fashion. This lavishly illustrated book, expanded and updated, examines the creative output of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883–1971) over the course of her long career and documents the creation and meteoric rise of the Chanel fashion empire and the products that bear its exclusive label: haute couture, ready-to-wear, accessories, jewelry, and perfumes.

A final chapter looks at the fashion house after Chanel, specifically the vision of creative director Karl Lagerfeld, who, from 1983 until his death in 2019, ensured that the brand retained its position as the forefront of fashion’s vanguard, as well as the reinterpretation of Chanel fashion signatures by his successor, Virginie Viard, today.