In the ’20s Coco Chanel ushered in a sleek, contemporary silhouette by way of the now ubiquitous LBD. During his 36-year tenure at Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld continued his predecessor’s legacy, creating knockout black dresses that ruled the red carpet and made for Haute Couture catnip to his muses for decades. Here we chart 22 of his greatest creations.
Photo: Getty Images1/22Julianne Moore, 2016
Dazzling at the 2016 Oscars wearing a custom plunging Chanel gown accented with ostentatious glitter, inspired by the maison’s Haute Couture spring 2016 collectsion.
Photo: Getty Images2/22Claudia Schiffer, 1995
Schiffer closed many a Lagerfeld Chanel show, here proving her supermodel merit at the 1995 Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a plunging corsage-detail gown.
Photo: Getty Images3/22Willow Smith, 2016
Proving herself the ultimate muse, Smith arriving at the maison’s Metier’s D'Art 2016 show in Paris, wearing Chanel, naturally.
Photo: Getty Images4/22Kristen Stewart, 2016
Lagerfeld favourite Stewart has worn Chanel countless times on the red carpet. Here she pulls off rebel chic in a cage-detail creation first worn by Binx Walton on the fall 2016 runway.
Photo: Getty Images5/22Chloë Sevigny, 2016
At the 11th annual Chanel Tribeca Film Festival Artists Dinner at Balthazar in New York Sevigny sported a leather dress and jacket and grungy lace tights from Chanel’s pre-fall 2016 collectsion.
Photo: Getty Images6/22Emma Stone, 2017
Stone proving why she was a Lagerfeld muse at the 2017 BAFTAs in London, wearing a floral embroidered Chanel gown with matching trousers from the maison’s Haute Couture spring 2017 collectsion.
Photo: Getty Images7/22Margot Robbie, 2018
Robbie wears a ruffled Chanel LBD with tasseled details from the house’s Haute Couture fall 2017 collectsion at the Charles Finch And Chanel Pre-Oscar Awards Dinner in Beverly Hills.
Photo: Getty Images8/22Cameron Diaz, 2007
Diaz dazzled at the Shrek the Third London premiere wearing a Chanel camelia-motif halterneck dress.
Photo: Getty Images9/22Kristen Stewart, 2010
The longtime Lagerfeld muse sported a sculptural strapless gown with ’80s aplomb at the Met Gala in 2010.
Photo: Getty Images10/22Lily Allen, 2010
Allen arriving on the red carpet at the Brit Awards 2010 in a bedazzling and lacquered Chanel creation from the brand’s pre-fall 2010 Paris-Shanghai collectsion, just one of numerous times she shimmered in the brand.
Photo: Getty Images11/22Keira Knightley, 2019
Knightley – who also chose a sorbet pink Chanel gown for her 2015 nuptials – smoulders in Haute Couture at the world Premiere of The Aftermath in London in 2019.
Photo: Getty Images12/22Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, 2019
Roaring onto the Met Gala red carpet in 2019 in matching hell-for-leather vintage Chanel.
Photo: Getty Images13/22Tessa Thompson, 2019
Thomspon wore a Haute Couture silk muslin bustier dress embroidered with gold beads to the Oscars in 2019, her favourite piece from the Parisian maison’s opulent collectsion.
Photo: Getty Images14/22Devon Aoki, 2007
Aoki making a case for the super short LBD while attending the Chanel Cruise 2007 show in Santa Monica, California.
Photo: Getty Images15/22Penelope Cruz, 2020
Rarely seen on the red carpet in anything but Chanel, Cruz oozes voluminous camelia-motif glamour at the 2020 Oscars, inspired by a gown from the maison’s spring 1995 collectsion.
Photo: Getty Images16/22Kirsten Dunst, 2013
Dunst arriving at the premiere of Inside Llewyn Davis at Cannes Film Festival in a two-tone, floral-embroidered gown.
Photo: Getty Images17/22Marion Cottilard, 2007
Smouldering in transparent lace Chanel at the the afterparty for screening of La Vie En Rose in New York City.
Photo: Getty Images18/22Janelle Monae
Longtime muse Monae attending the 2019 Golden Globes in a resplendently futuristic gown from Chanel's pre-fall 2019 collectsion.
Photo: Getty Images19/22Cate Blanchett, 2007
Blanchett arriving at the 2007 Golden Globes Awards in a lace-trim Chanel creation with a dramatic train.
Photo: Getty Images20/22Penelope Cruz. 2008
Arriving at the 2008 Oscars in LA in another elegant Karl creation, strapless, chic and adorned with feathers.
Photo: Getty Images21/22Lily-Rose Depp, 2019
With her mother a longtime Lagerfeld muse, Lily-Rose has even joked that “Chanel” was the first word she learned how to read. Here she smoulders in a Chanel archive chain-detail gown she wore to the 2019 Met Gala.
Photo: Getty Images22/22Chloe Sevigny, 2018
Sevigny arriving on the red carpet at the The House That Jack Built premiere in Cannes, in an elegant two tone Chanel creation, and sparkling diamonds and a red lip.
