Coco Chanel Paris

In Collaboration with The Lyons Gallery

Photograph by Douglas Kirkland

Coco Chanel, Paris, 1962

Archival pigment print

Hand Signed, dated and numbered by the artist recto

24" x 30” (61x76cm)

Edition of 24 + 6 APs

In August 1962, the American picture magazine Look sent Douglas Kirkland to Paris to shoot Coco Chanel after it emerged that Jackie Kennedy had been wearing her dresses and suits in the White House. Americans had heard of the perfume Chanel No 5, but until then they had no idea Chanel was also a fashion label.

She always wanted to be called Mademoiselle, not Coco, or Madame, which you would expect to call someone of her age in France. And Mademoiselle was very hands-on. She would never stand back and just point at things. She liked to pull things together and pin them. It was like watching a surgeon in an operating room – she knew precisely what she wanted. Her staff would surround her. It was always quiet when she worked, no chattering voices; the atmosphere was of reverence and concentration.