Chanel’s greatest rival in the battle for the post-World War I customer established the modern ideal of beauty when he hired long-limbed, flat-chested models with short hair from the USA.

In the 10th instalment of BoF’s fashion history series we study the self-taught seamstress who started her company on the insistence of her entrepreneurial son. She created democratic high fashion for the upper middle classes, and her couture could undercut Lanvin and Chanel by a third. But for this reason she was never mentioned in the same breath by high society.

In the ninth instalment of BoF’s fashion history series, we study Pierre Balmain, the designer who preferred making money to making waves. With the support of Cecil Beaton and Gertrude Stein, the couturier found himself feted on a global stage after just one collection. But a career chasing the custom of foreign royalty and Hollywood's finest at the expense of Parisien society left his legacy in tatters.

In the fourth instalment of BoF’s fashion history series, we meet the creator of the ‘little black dress,’ who took her cues from a country in mourning. Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, the designer doyenne who founded fashion’s most famous house, used her lovers’ money to establish herself and rewrote the rulebook with her mannish collections.

In the seventh instalment of BoF’s fashion history series, meet the late bloomer who invented the ‘New Look.’ It took Christian Dior four decades to put on a show but the gallerist turned designer won over Paris from the word go.

In the second instalment of BoF’s fashion history series, we study the life of Jeanne Lanvin, the milliner turned mogul who outlived the competition. She built the longest-running fashion house in the world on cloche hats, feminine clothes and a fragrance which is still around to this day.

Madeleine Vionnet built an empire by rejecting corsets and buttons in favour of the bias cut. In the third instalment of BoF’s fashion history series, we find out that, at its peak, Vionnet had 26 ateliers and employed 1,000 staff, but the couturier preferred the privacy of her study to meeting clients or running a business.

In the fifth instalment of BoF’s fashion history series, we study the life of Chanel’s arch enemy, who flirted with surrealism and brought shock factor into fashion. Elsa Schiaparelli shot to fame by mixing in Parisian society’s right circles which took her all the way to Hollywood where she dressed Greta Garbo and Mae West.