
1980s · 1990s · French
Designer
Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel
Production
haute couture
Material
wool
Culture
French
Movement
Power Dressing
Influences
Chanel suit tradition · 1940s military tailoring
A navy blue wool double-breasted jacket with classic Chanel styling features. The garment displays eight dark buttons arranged in two parallel columns, creating the signature double-breasted closure. The jacket has a structured silhouette with defined shoulders and a fitted waist that hits at the hip. Wide peaked lapels frame the neckline in traditional tailoring style. The sleeves appear to be set-in with clean lines. The overall construction demonstrates precise tailoring with sharp edges and clean finishing. This represents Lagerfeld's interpretation of Chanel's timeless suit aesthetic for the 1990s, maintaining the house's codes of structured elegance while adapting proportions for contemporary professional wear.
Follow this garment wherever the graph leads
The sharp shoulders and militant precision of these navy blazers trace a direct line from Chanel's 1980s power-suit revolution to its democratized descendant two decades later.
These two jackets reveal how the same DNA of feminine power dressing evolved across three decades of changing workplace dynamics. The brown pinstripe's crisp single-breasted silhouette with its clean lapels and structured shoulders speaks to the 1960s woman tentatively claiming her place in the boardroom, while the navy Chanel's assertive double-breasted front and peaked lapels declare full territorial conquest by the 1980s.
These two suits capture the split personality of 1980s power dressing: one democratizes authority through mass-market accessibility, while the other codifies it through Chanel's double-breasted naval precision.
These two pieces capture the essential duality of 1980s power dressing: the navy Chanel jacket with its militant double-breasted closure and sharp lapels represents the borrowed-from-the-boys approach, while those charcoal culottes embody the period's equally radical idea that women could claim authority in flowing, feminine silhouettes.