You've undoubtedly seen pictures of Princess Diana shining in a little black dress — or as the media calls it her "revenge dress" — at a 1994 Vanity Fair party on the same evening that her ex-husband, Prince Charles, admitted to cheating on public TV (via FQ). You've also probably seen a version on Marilyn Monroe, and of course, Audrey Hepburn.

Coco Chanel may have made little black dresses into haute couture, but she was almost certainly inspired by poverty when she designed the first one. Chanel was raised by Catholic nuns in an orphanage after her unwed mother died (via Time). Her childhood became fodder for her fashion. She invented, observed Time in 1951, "the genre panvre, or poor look," creating "a simple dress based on a sailor tricot," using ditch digger's scarves mechanic's shirts, and a waitress' uniforms. 

As the Atlantic later pointed out, in the world of poor, early 20th century Paris, little black dresses were nothing new. They were the mandatory uniforms for working-class women that Coco Chanel had grown up with. Chanel was just astute enough to monetize the look. "It was a dress" concluded the Atlantic, "reserved exclusively for those who could 'afford' to look poor by pretending that they simply couldn't be bothered with fashion."