L’entreprise Chanel (document en anglais)

Chanel is a French, privately held company owned by Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, grandsons of Pierre Wertheimer, who was a business partner of Gabrielle Chanel. Maureen Chiquet is the CEO of the fashion house.

Gabrielle Chanel revolutionized the trends and fashion of the XXI century. Her story proves it.

In 1910, Gabrielle Chanel opened her first shop in Paris, creating hats under the name “Chanel Modes”. After the First World War, in 1918, her reputation was firmly established. That’s why Gabrielle Chanel opened her couture house in Paris. In 1921, she unveiled her first fragrance, the iconic and revolutionary Chanel n°5 created by Ernest Beaux. However, in 1939, because of the World War II, she forced to close her house. After years of waiting, Chanel staged the grand re-opening of her couture house in 1954, at the age of 71. Then, in 1957, she created the legendary two-tone sling back shoe. But after the death of Chanel, in 1971, the house of Chanel didn’t correspond to the trends of the moment. However, in 1993, Karl Lagerfeld is appointed artistic director for Chanel fashion, designer of all haute couture, ready-to-wear and accessory collections. Thus, he gave a younger and more active image of the brand.

Nowadays, Chanel is a high fashion house that specializes in haute couture, ready-to-wear clothes, fragrances, make up, skincare and fashion accessories (jewelries and watches).

The Chanel Woman is sober, elegant seductive, independent and attractive. This is the Chanel style. The favorite colors of Chanel are black, white, beige, gold and red.

The kind of customer of Chanel is a woman, who is between 30 and 50 years old. Moreover, she has usually a high purchasing power.

Chanel operates all around the world. Indeed, there are 1 300 employees who work for Chanel. Moreover, 310 stores are implanted in the world and more precisely 128 in North America, 90 in Asia, 70 in Europe, 20 Oceania & Middle East, 2 in South America. The stores are situated in prime locations in major cities such as Paris, London, Tokyo and New-York.

For Chanel, the annual turnover is about $ 6.3 billion, with a net income of about 1.6 billion. However, fragrances and cosmetics businesses represent 70 % of total sales in the world.

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