Coco Chanel
Born: 19 August 1883
Birthplace: Saumur, France
Death: 10 January 1971
Best Known As: Designer who popularized the "little black dress"
Name at birth: Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel
Designer Coco Chanel gave the world the little black dress, Chanel No. 5 perfume, and a casually classic notion of style that influenced women's clothes throughout the 20th century. Coco -- a nickname meaning "little pet" -- was raised in an orphanage, where she learned to sew. In 1910 she began selling hats from her own shop, and by the 1920s her fashion business had expanded to include a couture house, her own textile factory and a line of perfumes that included the famous No. 5. Chanel took women's fashions away from corseted styles and introduced casual, practical clothing that borrowed fabrics and attitudes from men's fashion. She was the first to introduce black as a fashion color; her versatile, semi-formal "little black dress" became a Chanel trademark and an enduring fashion standard. During and after World War II Chanel's popularity waned, and her love affair with a Nazi officer kept her in a form of self-imposed exile in Switzerland for more than a decade. She made a comeback in 1954 and her designs became some of the most popular in the western world, especially in the United States. Since her death the Coco Chanel Company has been under the direction of designer Karl Lagerfeld.
Katharine Hepburn portrayed Chanel on Broadway in the musical Coco (1969, also with René Auberjonois).
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Catherine Deneuve
Born: 22 October 1943
Birthplace: Paris, France
Best Known As: Star of the movie Belle du Jour
Name at birth: Catherine Dorléac
Gorgeous and aloof, Catherine Deneuve was an icon of the French cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. Born into a family of actors, she made her film debut as a teenager, and as she grew into a woman her cool blonde charms began to turn moviegoers' heads. Though first promoted by filmmaker Roger Vadim in the early '60s, she found her breakthrough role in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Her most famous movies from the era are Repulsion (1965), Belle du Jour (1967) and Tristana (1970). Since the 1970s she has made movies outside of France only infrequently, but was internationally famous as a pitchwoman for Chanel perfume in the 1980s and appeared in the critically acclaimed films The Last Metro (1980) and Indochine (1992, Oscar nomination). Deneuve also has a cult following for her portrayal of a vampire in The Hunger (1983, with Susan Sarandon) and has appeared in Dancer in the Dark (2000, starring Björk) and the campy musical 8 Femmes (2002).
Other sexy European leading ladies include Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and Brigitte Bardot.
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