The retrospective show "Gabrielle Chanel—Fashion Manifesto" at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London takes visitors on a journey that begins with the iconic designer’s first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910 and ends with her final collection in 1971. Featuring over 200 looks brought together in one place for the first time, the show shines a spotlight on both little-known pieces held by the Museum and showstoppers from the fashion house, Patrimoine de Chanel, and the Palais Galliera (Paris Fashion Museum). The show and recent books on the designer also crack open a door to what few know about Channel: her fixation with Russian aesthetics in the early 1920s, inspired by or part of her fascination with the Russian émigrés in her social circle. “This interest manifested in her designs of the period,” says Oriole Cullen, the curator behind the show "Gabrielle Chanel—Fashion Manifesto." “Chanel employed several Russian émigrés at her salon.