When is a Chanel jacket not a Chanel jacket? When it is a collarless jacket in a ladylike pastel tweed, with a boxy shape accentuated by shiny gold buttons on four patch pockets – but the label says Mango. Or when it is an unstructured hip-length textured blazer in a soft-focus check, with pearl-effect buttons – but it’s £59.99 at Zara.
The soft tweed jacket that Coco Chanel made famous has become a bread-and-butter look for fashion retailers all over the world. Not that the Chanel name is openly invoked, of course. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but lawyers are immune to sweet talk, so the name is absent from other retailers’ descriptions of their nubbly blazers with fancy buttons. (By the way, it is not just high street copies Chanel is offended by: Saint Laurent’s tweed-suit-based catwalk show last year sparked a public row, with Chanel calling Saint Laurent a “parasite” – although the two have since issued a joint statement condemning plagiarism.)
