Audrey Tautou plays Coco Chanel in “Coco Avant Chanel” film.
Photograph: /Sony Pictures Classics

Chanel herself, c.1920
Photograph: Pictures Inc./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

Chanel Store in Venice, Italy

Time magazine named French designer Coco Chanel one of the 100 most influential women of the 20^th century for a reason. She had exuberance, passion and ambition that changed the industry and the cultural milieu of the modern woman. Her designs created a paradigm shift in the fashion world.  We are all thankful that she liberated women from wearing stifling corsets. She introduced a unique,  androgynous style by wearing trousers in public. High society women began to wear Chanel No. 5, which was considered inappropriate and provocative at the time.

Coco Chanel was so many things. An artist, a rebel, a thinker. But most of all, she was a shrewd businesswoman.

“The most courageous act is still to think…