Credited with liberating women from the constraints of the corset, the luxury brand's founder Coco Chanel was the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Early designs from her eponymous fashion house are now iconicised as modern classics - from their classic tweed suits and quilted handbags, to their best-selling No. 5 perfume.
Born 132 years ago today, Chanel was 87 when she died in 1971 at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, in a legendary and luxurious suite where she lived for more than 30 years.
To celebrate the fashion icon's 19 August birthday, we take a look back at her inimitable style and most inspirational quotes:
Coco Chanel Quotes
"In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different"(01 of43)
Coco Chanel, French couturier. Paris, 1936. LIP-6958-101. (Photo by Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"Fashion fades, only style remains the same."(02 of43)
1937: Portrait of French fashion designer Coco Chanel (1882 - 1971) wearing a ruff collar. (Photo by George Hoyningen-Huene/RDA/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous"(03 of43)
Coco Chanel, French couturier. Paris, 1936 LIP-28371. (Photo by Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!"(04 of43)
French fashion designer Coco Chanel (C) is congratulated by French principal dancer Jacques Chazot (R) after presenting her Spring-Summer collection in Paris 30 January 1958. (Photo credit should read STF/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening."(05 of43)
Gabrielle Chanel (1883 - 1971) known as Coco, the French couturier. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"A women who doesn't wear perfume has no future."(06 of43)
Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the French dress designer. (credit:PA)
"Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future."(07 of43)
Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel - perfumer and jeweller - (1883-1971) (credit:PA)
"Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity."(08 of43)
French fashion designer Coco Chanel. (credit:PA)
"Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions."(09 of43)
French fashion designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. (credit:PA)
"Elegance does not consist in putting on a new dress."(10 of43)
The fashion designer Coco CHANEL monitored her fashion show from the staircase. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"Look for the woman in the dress. If there is no woman, there is no dress."(11 of43)
Coco Chanel after fashion show on september 29, 1968. (Photo by RDA/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury."(12 of43)
French fashion designer Coco Chanel (1883 - 1971), circa 1962. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"Fashion is made to become unfashionable."(13 of43)
Coco Chanel, French couturier. Paris, 1937. (Photo by Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejeuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous."(14 of43)
A portrait of Gabrielle Chanel, world renowned dressmaker and dictator of fashion, June 18, 1936. (Photo by FPG/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"It is always better to be slightly underdressed."(15 of43)
Coco Chanel, French couturier. Paris, 1937. LIP-6958-059. (Photo by Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"There have been several Duchesses of Westminster but there is only one Chanel!"(16 of43)
Gabrielle Chanel, known as Coco (1883 - 1971), top French couturier, at Fauborg, St Honore, Paris. (Photo by Sasha/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
"Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance."(17 of43)
1957: French fashion designer Coco Chanel says goodbye to American department store executive Stanley Marcus as she boards an airplane in Dallas, Texas. Chanel had been visiting for the opening of a new Neiman-Marcus store. She holds a package from the store. (Photo by Shel Hershorn/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
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