The Fashion Law Blog reports….
As the story goes, years before Chanel began attaching a single white flower to its black boxes tied up with Chanel-branded ribbons, before its garments – such as the floor-grazing frock that young actress Margaret Qualley wore on the red carpet in at the Golden Globes last year – were dotted with a lone floral accent, and quite a bit before the brand began offering up sparkling, fine jewelry in the shape of delicately-pelated blooms, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel developed a love for camellias.
It is unclear exactly how the late Ms. Chanel’s affinity for the exquisitely-blossoming flower came about; some point to Alexandre Dumas’ novel La Dame aux Camélias as piquing the designer’s interest in the flower that can be found among the foliage in various regions of her native France. Others suggest that a bouquet from lover Arthur “Boy” Capel was the reason. What is clear is that it did not take long for the designer to begin pinning one of the flowers in her hair or adorning her waistbands and jackets – and ultimately, no shortage of products from her eponymous brand – with a single camellia.
“The camellia was [Ms. Chanel’s] simple, near symmetric wordless calling card, almost as iconic as the linked double Cs, but categorically more symbolic,” as the Independent characterized it not long ago, noting that the flower “has, of course, endured as an emblem of the Chanel house of fashion, beauty and fragrance long after its founder’s death in 1971.”
The brand’s fabric camellias “reportedly take up to 40 minutes to make by hand, each petal a heart-shape folded over to create full blooms,” according to the Independent, while the outline of its petals “appears embossed on make-up palettes, on lipstick bullets, subtly and blatantly, a link to the past and yet perpetually in vogue.”
But more than merely serving as an enduring testament to the house’s heritage, as a result of the frequent and consistent use of the same five-petaled camellia by Chanel in connection with its products, as well as its packaging, the flower has become, in the words of the Telegraph, “one of the most instantly recognizable emblems in all of Chanel’s accessories, clothing and jewelry.” Put another way, the flower, when used in connection with certain types of goods and services, acts as an indicator of source (i.e., a trademark).
Read full article at. https://www.thefashionlaw.com/chanel-adds-camellia-drawing-to-its-arsenal-of-trademarks/
