As one of the most iconic women in the history of fashion, one responsible for some of our most iconic fashion looks to boot, Coco Chanel is someone whose image we’re used to seeing. However a new exhibition at the Fashion Space Gallery London, opens this week that shows her in rather a new light. Featuring a series of portraits done by the artist Marion Pike, Mademoiselle ‘Gabrielle’ Coco Chanel is presented as never seen before.

Where others such as Picasso supposedly failed in getting Chanel to sit for them, Pike, a Californian artist, succeeded, painting the designer in her studio in a series of portraits between 1967 and 1971. The two ladies met whilst Pike was spending time in Paris in the 1960s and formed a friendship, corresponding regularly. Pike was known to wear Chanel when she wasn’t working, too – surely a perk of the job. The resulting images are not only beautiful but give a window into who the woman was - in that way that only portraiture can, they present Chanel as less of a personality, more of a person. We can’t wait to see it.

Coco Chanel: a New Portrait by Marion Pike Paris 1967-71 is at the Fashion Space Gallery, London 05 September 2013 – 16 November 2013

http://www.fashionspacegallery.com