Chanel

By the numbers it just doesn't seem right. Nearly 65% of American women are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, and of those, more than 35% are obese. Yet most designer collections end at size 10. And on hundreds of high-fashion runways at international fashion weeks this month and last, ultra-slim models were wearing trendsetting designs that will never be manufactured in sizes to fit most American women. In a time when retailers are struggling to turn a profit, the disconnect between fashion and reality is a puzzle.

PARIS -- With a runway in the round surrounded by closed doors, Naomi Watts, Jessica Chastain, Elizabeth Olsen, Lily Collins and the rest of the fashion crowd waited to see what surprise Marc Jacobs had in store for the fall 2013 Louis Vuitton show held Wednesday, the final day of Paris Fashion Week. The inspiration: A focus on materials and surface details redolent of the boudoir, according to the show notes. "An attitude of getting dressed up only to find the most glamorous destination is one's own hotel room.

Late at night in a college classroom, Liliana Hung opened her laptop and adjusted her Chanel eyeglasses. She took a swig of Rockstar energy drink before tackling her assignment, which was to write a synopsis of one of three scenarios for a television show: A man learns that his long-lost mother is working in a strip joint. A woman seduces a young man, then realizes that he is her son. A transvestite called the "Queen of the Night" discovers his father dancing onstage at a club. At Telenovela U.

For someone who was as celebrated internationally as France's Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the woman who inspired dozens of biographies by changing the shape of 20th century fashion, not that much is known for sure about her formative years. "Chanel lied all the time. She used to say, 'I invented my life because I didn't like my life,' " Anne Fontaine has said, with Audrey Tautou adding, "Chanel always disguised the reality. It takes some cunning to know who Chanel really was." Though Chanel's reticence may sound like a barrier to filmmakers, it stimulated co-writer and director Fontaine and star Tautou, who've combined to turn "Coco Before Chanel" into a superior filmed biography that brings intelligence, restraint and style to what could have been a more standard treatment.

Coco Chanel is known for saying "a woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future" and "fashion passes, style remains." But did she? Bons mots have been attributed to her because they seemed like the kind of thing the witty, sharp-tongued fashion icon might say. As Karen Karbo writes with dazzled admiration in "The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons From the World's Most Elegant Woman" (skirt!: 226 pp., $19.95), a certain un-pindownable-ness around Chanel (1883-1971) is pretty standard: "She was a master of misinformation, which is a nice way of saying she compulsively lied about her past, and then lied about having lied, and then disavowed the lie about the lie."

Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel and Jean Cocteau--close friends who fostered each other's creativity during their lifetimes--were "reunited" Sunday when the Chanel Boutique unveiled an exhibit of Cocteau's art. More than 100 guests gathered at Chanel in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, to view selected Cocteau works on loan from the Severin Wunderman Museum in Irvine. The $50-per-person champagne reception was expected to raise about $20,000 for the museum.

Karen Rockwell and Sally Cain stood poised before the new Chanel boutique, waiting impatiently for the thick glass doors to swing open and admit the first customers. "Look at that great jacket--oh, God," said Rockwell, peering through the glass. She had driven from her home in Rolling Hills Estates on Monday morning to see the new Chanel store in South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. "We've been waiting a whole year for this," said Cain, a Huntington Beach resident.

Chanel has selected "Pride & Prejudice" star Keira Knightley as the new face of its Coco Mademoiselle fragrance. The 21-year-old actress will appear in Chanel ads beginning in 2007, the company announced Wednesday. Knightley succeeds Kate Moss, whose contract expired last October. The 32-year-old British supermodel had starred in the Coco Mademoiselle ads since 2002.

One fashion icon is partnering with another: Nicole Kidman is the new face of Chanel. The French luxury house announced Friday that Kidman is the new celebrity spokeswoman for Chanel No. 5, the top selling fragrance in the world. The iconic perfume was introduced in 1921. Baz Luhrmann, who directed the 36-year-old actress in the musical "Moulin Rouge," is creating, directing and producing the ad campaign, which will be ready in the fall of 2004.

Sleek, airy and abbreviated. The new Chanel store is as expertly packaged as the trendy shopping row it inhabits: West Hollywood's Robertson Boulevard. The boutique, which opens Friday, is the first in a new breed of smaller shops for the company that zero in on the season's trends and the neighborhood, a spokeswoman said.