Not many people get to meet Coco Chanel, most in fact learn about her legacy through her eponymous label Chanel, or for the literary lot, the movie Coco Before Chanel and the several biographies written on her. However, celebrity photographer Douglas Kirkland can't say the same. Other then having shot Hollywood icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Sophia Loren just to name a few (his list is extensive, and in fact, today, he still shoots celebrities. His latest project is Elle Fanning, the up-and-coming-in-Hollywood sister of Dakota Fanning), at the tender age of 27, Kirkland was enlisted by Coco herself to follow her around the Chanel atelier in Paris for three weeks, to capture her collection, but with a little familiarity, Kirkland reveals she told him soon after, "you can do whatever you want", and that is how this photo story of Coco was born.

The first thing you'll notice upon examining the exhibition Mademoiselle, is that the Coco that Kirkland captured, is one very different from the depressed personality that is more then often depicted from her biographies. She gleams with a smile stretched ear to ear in each photo.

Upon his visit to Hong Kong, we meet Kirkland to learn more about the Chanel exhibition, learn more about his time spent with Chanel - "if you knew her privately, you didn't call her ‘Coco', that was her public name, you addressed her as ‘Mademoiselle', that was a kind of respect for her". Watch our video interview with Kirkland above.