Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon, from Belgian-Columbian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, was originally sought for Queensland Ballet by the company’s former artistic director, Li Cunxin. He began working to add it to the repertoire, he told me, some five or six years ago. It finally premiered in Brisbane as a joint production with Hong Kong Ballet and Atlanta Ballet.

Queensland Ballet’s Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon (Georgie Swan and Edison Manuel as Logo; Kaho Kato as Shadow-Chanel). Photo © David Kelly

As program notes tell us, Coco Chanel was a “creative, controversial and wildly ambitious” woman. In addition to her initiatives with clothing design and the creation of a range of perfumes, she had a number of lovers, she interacted with many of the world’s best-known artists across theatrical genres, and her connection with the Nazi movement during World War II has been hotly debated. How then to create a ballet about her life, filled as it was with so many complex activities?

We first see Chanel (Neneka Yoshida) as a poverty-stricken 19-year-old seamstress working in a factory on clothes to be worn by...