The Essence

Ever since his first show for the house in 1983, Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel collections have consistently made headlines and dictated trends the world over. For the first time, every Chanel collection ever created by Lagerfeld is here gathered in a single volume – a unique opportunity to chart the development of one of the world’s […]

Founded by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé in 1961, shortly after the young couturier left his post at the helm of Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent would soon become one of the most successful and influential haute couture houses in Paris. Introducing Le Smoking, the first tuxedo suit for women, in 1966, Saint Laurent […]

Founded as a luxury leather goods house in 1854, Louis Vuitton was for many decades one of the world’s leading trunk and accessories makers. It was after launching its first fashion collections in 1998, however, that the house reached unprecedented global fame, and pioneered high-profile collaborations with artists such as Richard Prince, Takashi Murakami and […]

Chanel No. 5 has been made with flowers from the same picturesque patch of land between the Alps and the Mediterranean, known as the Pegomas Valley, since the perfume was created, in 1921. Every year hundreds of pounds of flowers are cultivated, picked, and distilled, following secret traditions. For the first time, the artisanal techniques […]