
The modern origins of the little black dress can be traced to 1926, when Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel channeled her emphasis on function and ease into a simple shift that appeared in the October issue of Vogue that year (a 1931 version is shown at right). The French designer was inspired by the clothes of working girls. “She herself wore this new evening uniform with incomparable allure,” Charlotte Seeling wrote in a recent anthology of fashion, “as befitted someone who, throughout her lifetime, had always been the best model for her own emancipating style of fashion.”
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