Woman's Hour - 29/10/2009

With Jenni Murray. A special programme looking at the relationship women have with clothes. Coco Chanel started life as an orphan in provincial France but managed to not only build one of the biggest global fashion brands, but also fundamentally change the way women dressed. Liberating women from the restrictive corsets of the day, she insisted on making clothes that would allow movement - and it was what the modern woman wanted. Ahead of her new biography, Justine Picardie tells Jenni how she carved out her extraordinary success, from hat maker to couture designer and how Coco's legacy affects us today. Also women's emotional link to clothes. How does what we wear make us feel? And why do we hold onto some items much longer than we should? Justine Picardie, stylist Jay Hunt and Oriole Cullen, currator of fashion and textiles and the Victoria and Albert Museum, discuss the emotional attachment women have with what they wear. What does broadcaster Lowri Turner wear? Reporter Henrietta Harrison gets the chance to rummage in her wardrobe. And, are women slaves to fashion or do they use it to their own ends? Paula Reed, style director at Grazia magazine, and Sarah Churchwell, writer and academic at the University of East Anglia, explore whether women really can wear what they want.