Evening dress

Design House House of Chanel French
Designer Gabrielle Chanel French

Not on view

Beginning in the early 1920s, Chanel used red with such regularity that Women's Wear Daily began using the term "Chanel red" in 1926. Two years earlier, Chanel had created her first lipstick, which was based on the same shade of red to be found in the Coromandel screens that decorated her apartment in the rue Cambon. Commenting on her penchant for red, Chanel stated, "I find comfort with beige because it is natural. Not dyed. Red, because it is the color of blood and we have so much of it inside ourselves that it should be shown a little on the outside."

Evening dress, House of Chanel (French, founded 1910), cotton, French

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