An iconic logo.

"With a dress, you must see the woman. But those men designers all want to hide a woman. Where is the woman in their dresses?" @ Douglas Kirkland photo.

Gabrielle Chanel in Paris, 1924. She had designed the costumes for Diaghilev's ballet, "Le Train Bleu."

"Women need to be loved. One can never be too feminine. That always succeeds."

"The most distinguished thing of any 'thing' she put her name on." Diana Vreeland.

"She was a powerful outsider who changed the rules to suit her." Harold Koda, Metropolitan Musuem Costume Institute.

Chanel at 68, photographed in the Jardin du Carrousel in Paris in 1951.

"The more women demand liberation, the more they lose it. Women cannot do without men." @ Douglas Kirkland photo.

"I always wanted to get to know Coco, but she was very forbidding. She never had any feeling of friendship for me." From "The Select Diaries of Cecil Beaton, 1922-1974."

"It was a proper society that she had around her, and everyone was very fascinated by her." Diana Vreeland.

Beginning at age 12, Chanel learned the sewing arts during six years spent at Aubazine, a convent for orphans.

"The woman who hasn't at least one Chanel is hopelessly out of fashion...This season the name Chanel is on the lips of every buyer." "Harper's Bazaar," 1915. @Douglas Kirkland photo.

"We were all terrified of her! Every morning, the instant she was spotted crossing the Rue Cambon, the operators rang to every department, 'Mademoiselle is coming!'" Anne-Marie Perrier, French Elle.

"A dress is the hardest thing to make. All those little boys can make their Chanel suits. But, their dresses....." @Douglas Kirkland photo.

"I'm working too hard. But I am enchanted. I like to work."

With fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, 1940s. "She got her sense of elegance from men. Like a monkey, she observed and copied." Alexander Liberman, Conde Nast deputy chairman.

Barbra Streisand, Elsa Martinelli, and Marlene Deitrich, front row at Chanel fashion show, 1976.

"Dress to please. A woman must always be ready for what I call 'the glance without pity.' Charm is always seductive."

"She was the ultimate Frenchwoman, a survivor, she had multiple love interests, disciplined, thin, brilliant, and chic." Horst P. Horst

With client Claude Pompidou, who would become first lady of France in 1969. @ Douglas Kirkland photo.

The Venetian blackamoors in the foyer of the salon welcomed the fortunate to Coco Chanel's private apartment within the House of Chanel. @Architectural Digest photo.

In the dining room, a melage of over-sized Spanish, Italian, and French objects d'art and a pair of rare Chinese vases. @Architectural Digest photo.

Coromandel screens create an intimacy at one end of the living room, centered with a tapestry-covered Louis XV fauteuil. @Architectural Digest photo.

The famous mirrored staircase that lead from the salon on the first two floors to Chanel's sumptuous apartment above. @Architectural Digest photo.

"The Store Comes First." The House of Chanel, 31 rue Cambon, Paris.

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, photographed by Ronny Jacques, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1969.

"Requiescant in Pace." Coco Chanel died on January 10, 1971, and is buried in the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery in Lausanne, Switzerland.