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The Chanel brand is the embodiment of glamour today, but Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel wanted her clothes to be simple - the famous "little black dress", the cardigan, the subtle jacket. Simplicity was a reflection of her own life.

Chanel's Singapore-based marketing manager Stephanie Donnet-Couette shared a few anecdotes from the "secret" life of Chanel at a symposium last week. Behind her tailored suits, she said, Coco was an amorous woman who dared to defy the rules set out for her gender.

"Gabrielle had many lovers, she was never married and she never had children," said Donnet-Couette, by way of explaining that a lot of her clothes came from men's wardrobes.

She came from an era when women still wore tight corsets, and strove to give them comfort instead. She used jersey - an inexpensive material that was all around her at her seaside home in Deauville. Until then it had only been used to make men's underwear.

This was the beginning of women's sportswear.

Over the years Coco launched many like-minded trends. She freed women from the inevitability of the long, ornately braided hairstyle by simply cutting hers short. She gave them the man's cardigan and business suit to wear.

When Gabrielle went out, Donnet-Couette said, her handbag hid her secrets, and that glee lives on in the

2.55 handbag she designed - many

little pockets, the better to conceal lovers' notes. The contents of the main bag itself remain hidden by a second flap.

Coco had her feminine side, but her sexiness was always accompanied by practicality. Unadorned except for her favourite flower, the camellia - a symbol of pleasure, sensuality and wild love - the little black dress became the must-have party outfit, good for daytime as well as evenings.

"It is the uniform of the modern woman," said Donnet-Couette. "Her life changed with it, because it was so fluid and easy to wear."

Coco's beige shoes seemed to elongate the legs, and she borrowed a scuff-protection idea from men's golf shoes, putting a leather "cap" of a different colour on the toes.

Women today often have many pairs of shoes, Donnet-Couette observed, but Coco had only four, all beige - one with black toes for everyday wear, navy-coloured "caps" for summer, dark brown for sports and gold for evening.

She loved wearing pearl necklaces. Once at a party, said Donnet-Couette, her necklace broke while she was dancing. Unfazed as usual, she calmly re-strung the necklace and put knots between the pearls.

In 1924 Coco introduced fake jewellery. And then, in the midst of a recession in 1932 when other designers were feverishly cutting costs, she unveiled a collection of diamonds.

Such is the mystery of Chanel.

Counting on Coco

1909: Opens a millinery shop in Paris called Chanel Modes. Her hats are worn by celebrated French actresses and her reputation blossoms.

1913: Introduces women's sportswear at her new boutique in Deauville, France.

1918: Introduces the cardigan and short hairstyles.

1921: Launches Chanel No 5, Coco's choice among the five perfumes created for her by Earnest Beaux. Today, every 30 seconds, another bottle is sold.

1924: Opens the first costume-jewellery workshop to manufacture fake jewellery.

1926: La petite robe noire - the little black dress - is a hit.

1928: Her first tweed suit.

1932: A collection of diamonds taunts Europe's economic recession.

1955: The Chanel suit and the little quilted 2.55 handbag appear, the latter named for the month and year. Chanel was the first to put straps on handbags to free the hands.

1957: Introduces beige shoes with black toe caps.

1960: Offers women a "comfort blanket" in the form of the tweed jacket. It soon becomes a trademark of US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Grace of Monaco.

For video clips from the symposium visit blog.nationmultimedia.com/lisnaree.

Lisnaree Vichitsorasatra

The Nation