THE "FORD"...

"For whom are you in mourning Mademoiselle?" Paul Poiret asked Chanel. "Why, for you, Monsieur" she answered.

Prior to the 1920s black was often reserved for periods of mourning, But when in 1926 Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel published a picture of a short, simple black dress in American Vogue, the story changed. This dress made it, of black crepe de chine, knee- length and decorated only by a few diagonal lines, was comfortable and accessible for women of all social classes.

Vogue called it "Chanel's Ford", because its mass appeal rivaled that of the Model T, (The car produced by Henry Ford's Motor Company from September 1908 to October 1927).

                                     Henry Ford pictured with the Model T 

Vogue also said that the 'little black dress' would become "a sort of uniform for all women of taste".

The little "Ford" dress by Coco Chanel

After his publication in Vogue, the critics sneered at everything from its cut to its color, with rival designer Elsa Schiaparelli going so far as to dismiss the design as "widow's weeds", but the infallible Chanel brought the color black out of mourning away from the clergy, turning it into the very essence of Parisian chic. And yet "women immediately started wearing it," says Pamela Golbin, 20th-century curator of the Louvre's Museum of Fashion and Textiles".

Sketch of Coco Chanel wearing the 'Ford' dress, by Karl Lagerfeld current Creative Director of Chanel.

Since the famous little "Ford" dress created for Coco Chanel, every self-respecting couturier and fashion designer has brought out their own version, but the little black dress legend started with the little 'Ford' dress.

Mademoiselle Chanel's maxim: "A woman who doesn't wear a little black dress is a woman without a future".