★★★★☆
When American Vogue published an illustration of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s delicate black lace and crepe de Chine frock in October 1926, it likened the item to the most ubiquitous car in America: a Ford Model T. This was not because it was glamorous, but because it was useful: here, the magazine predicted, was “the frock that all the world would wear”.
That little black dress, on display at the V&A’s exhibition on the secretive, unknowable designer, is the little black dress, the original LBD that provided the blueprint for many found in modern wardrobes. And those who think that a display cabinet full of black frocks might sound dull (not least compared with the regal ballgowns of Dior’s 2019 exhibition at the same museum
