Audrey Tautou to play Coco Chanel

Audrey Tautou

Audrey Tautou is set to play Coco Chanel in a new French movie.

The film will document the iconic designer's life before she became famous and will be directed by French director Anne Fontaine.

'I wanted to follow the interior path of this young woman who was poor, without education, but who had an uncommon personality that was ahead of her time,' Anne told movie journal Le Film Francais.

Shooting will start in early 2008.

Two other Coco Chanel projects are also in the works - one a film that explores her relationship with composer Igor Stravinsky.

Coco Chanel, who died in 1971, had such in impact on fashion she was included in TIME magazine's 100 most influential people of the 20th Century.