Chloé: The story of a fashion legend at 60.

Chloe founder Gaby Aghion, photographed sometime between 1945-1949, by her husband Raymond Aghion. Photograph: Chloé

While Chloé's spring/summer 2013 collection was unveiled in Paris during fashion week, an exhibition celebrating the label's 60th anniversary is currently showing at the French capital's Palais de Tokyo centre.
The timing of Clare Waight Keller's latest designs hitting the catwalk, coinciding with a look back at the history of the label she now runs in the Chloé.Attitudes exhibition, serves as a reminder of the inspiring heritage of this Parisian fashion house.

Stella McCartney, Phoebe Philo and Hannah MacGibbon all designed for Chloé, but it is the Egyptian-born Gaby Aghion who began it all. She might not be a household name like her brand, but the 91-year-old is a pioneer when it comes to women designing for other women.

Chloé's Rachmaninoff dress (Karl Lagerfeld, 1972) Photograph: Chloé

  Arriving in Paris in 1945, she became part of a postwar bohemian circle who gathered in Left Bank cafes, counting Picasso and Paul Eluard as friends. When Aghion wanted to set up the brand Chloé – named after a good friend Chloé Huysmans – seven years later, it was her friends she wanted to dress, not grandes dames more suited to rarefied designs peddled by 1950s couture salons. By contrast, Aghion championed simplicity – her first collection was a collection of six cotton poplin dresses. Peddled in a suitcase around the boutiques of Paris, they sold out everywhere they were stocked. A smart businesswoman, too, Aghion insisted on her own Chloé label in the back of the brand's designs, rather than the boutique's, as was customary in the 50s.

If brand-awareness was one pioneering concept, Aghion has also been credited with inventing a luxe version of ready-to-wear – something that appealed to a growing demographic of working women who, even if they had the money, didn't have the time for couture's endless fittings. Instead, she advocated a concept we now take for granted – designer clothes sold off the peg, wearable that night. They were all about an easy chic; shirtdresses, blouses and neat cigarette silhouettes became Chloé signatures under Aghion. It was a capsule way of dressing, and you can see her influence over current female designers, and the Chloé alumni, Philo and McCartney.

Once remarking that "fashion should be as fresh as a salad", Aghion was a great supporter of emerging talent – hiring a young Karl Lagerfeld early in his career, as well as other designers including Martine Sitbon. Lagerfeld, however, is an exception that proves the rule – across the nine key designers covered in Chloé.Attitudes, it's evident that this is brand that celebrates women designing for women.

Credit