Style Edit: How Chanel jackets evolved from Gabrielle Chanel to Matthieu Blazy
Reinterpreted across eras, the French maison’s signature jackets remain enduring staples designed for a life in motion
A Chanel jacket is often recognised before the eye has registered much else: the neat, graphic outline; the textured cloth; the trim defining its edges. Yet its staying power has less to do with instant recognition than with a quality that still feels remarkably current – clothes that look poised while allowing their wearer to move freely.
Gabrielle Chanel began developing that idea in the 1920s, when she decided to work with tweed, then a fabric associated almost exclusively with menswear. Drawn to textiles that offered softness and comfort, she transformed tweed into one of her signatures, making the fabric lighter and more supple. The resulting tweed suit, and particularly its jacket, challenged prevailing ideas of restrictive womenswear with a new kind of casual elegance: structured, yes, but made to be lived in.