![Coco Chanel](https://style.time.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2013/01/89518187.jpg?w=260)
French fashion designer Coco Chanel puts the finishing touches to a new creation in her Paris fashion house, 1959.
Hailed as one of her most enduring contributions to fashion, the little black frock was a wardrobe essential for Chanel. She considered the garment functional for daytime, evening and anything in between, and today, no modern woman’s closet is complete without at least one LBD.