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It’s hard to imagine the world without a Little Black Dress (LBD), but when Coco Chanel sketched one for American Vogue in 1926, it was something special. She didn’t invent black dresses, of course – little or otherwise. Queen Victoria wore one for 40 melancholy years from 1861. In fact, black dresses were already in fashion in the early years of the twentieth century. But the Little Black Dress as a phenomenon, almost as a personality in its own right… well, that probably was Coco.
Previously, black was a colour with purpose. It was worn for mourning, but also implied class, because maids wore it. Mop cap, white apron, simple black dress. It was workwear – a distinction between the upper classes and their servants.
In the 1910s, when New York shop girls found themselves with disposable income and places to spend it, they bought bright, fashionable fabrics. They threw off black shackles and defined themselves in bold hues. The middle classes hit back. Managers at grand shops brought in black uniforms, distinguishing young working women from the smart ladies they waited on – at least during work hours.
But colour had lost its status. As always happens when affluent trend-setters see their status symbols spread to the masses, they embraced the opposite: they wore black for pleasure.
So, Chanel didn’t invent this trend, but she powered it. She fashioned the little black dress as a classic, wearable essential. It would “become a sort of uniform for all women of taste”, Vogue wrote of her 1926 design. And it did.
“I imposed black”, she said – never one to shy from overstatement, especially if it asserted superiority over male competitors. “It’s still going strong today.” That was in 1946; a truism in 2023, as well.
Little Black Dresses helped define every decade: transcending class, status, form and function. It’s workwear; it’s black tie; it’s just something comfy you’ve thrown on. An outfitting essential reflecting female fashion like no other piece of clothing can. The red dress tried, Levi’s jeans captured the casual market and the raspberry beret got a song, but they don’t come close.
In the 1960s the LBD was an androgynous smock with a matching baker boy hat and over-the-knee boots. By the 1990s it was a casual silk slip – spaghetti straps over a fresh white tee and ballet slippers. It’s the armour of every female entrepreneur entering male-dominated boardrooms, it’s Michelle Obama telling young girls the power is with them. Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman flinging snails across a restaurant. Audrey Hepburn eating a croissant outside Tiffany’s. Rihanna, heavily pregnant, making headlines in a sheer Dior nightie and leather cape.
Some Little Black Dresses are so era-defining they get their own Wikipedia pages. The Revenge Dress Princess Diana wore in 1994 to upstage Prince Charles amidst the talk of extra-marital affairs. That Dress, the same year, was Elizabeth Hurley’s gold Versace safety-pinned, slashed number. A decade later, The Galaxy: Roland Mouret’s figure-hugging geometric neckline which graced almost as many red carpets as Dior’s New Look – cinched-in waist and wide A-line skirt – in 1947.
But others are just quiet, everyday effortlessness. Dresses that don’t make everyone stare, but when they catch your eye, they look pristine, effortless and exactly right. Perhaps those uniform undertones have never left – it’s still the hardest-working item of clothing there is. As Karl Lagerfeld put it, while restoring the House of Chanel to its former glory in the years after Coco’s death, “One is never over-dressed or under-dressed with a Little Black Dress”.
