THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING; Chanel makes a big pitch for a new perfume aimed at young women, its toughest market.

FOR the last 81 years, the Chanel name has carried a special resonance for women 30 and older, who have made Chanel No. 5 the world's leading fragrance. But the younger market has proved elusive for Chanel, a state of affairs it intends to change with the introduction of its latest fragrance appealing to 20-somethings. Chanel's name for the new fragrance -- Chance -- is fitting. To capture the fancy of this fickle group of women of ages 18 to 29, Chanel is giving Chance the biggest marketing push in the company's history -- with an introductory budget estimated at more than $12 million. Chanel is flinging itself into a market already crowded by competitors' earlier entrants, like Happy by Clinique and CK One from Calvin Klein. Chanel's aggressive plans are self-explanatory, industry observers said. ''Young consumers are the lifeblood of the beauty industry,'' said Irma Zandl, president of the Zandl Group in New York, a consulting company that specializes in the under-30 age category. ''A brand not recruiting teens or young adults is just getting old.''

Chanel's Upper-Class Face

AS far as Stella Tennant, the new face of the House of Chanel, is concerned, modeling is "a bit of a lark." And for Karl Lagerfeld, who is in charge of Chanel, that attitude is just what he was looking for. She's totally modern, but not without roots of what is considered elegant in the past," Mr. Lagerfeld said. "Stella has lots of class." Though pleased with his description, Ms. Tennant, a rail-thin, six-foot, 25-year-old Briton, bristles when pressed about her classy roots. "Everyone wants to write about me because my grandparents are titled, because I'm the granddaughter of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire," she said. "Sure, that's part of who I am; I mean, I love my family, but that's not who I am. I grew up on a farm in Scotland." Asked what her family thought of her career, Ms. Tennant said, "Pass." It is hard to dispute, though, that Ms. Tennant's lineage has helped her to rise as a model. Women like Ms. Tennant, Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta bring to fashion "something else," Mr. Lagerfeld said, adding, "No matter what they are wearing or how they are photographed, they seem always like themselves -- whether they are that person in reality or not."

Chanel and Givenchy Transitions

Fashion years operate a bit like dog years for designers: with six collections annually, their learning curves have to be a bit more accelerated than those of people who make career decisions every 12 months. So Alexander McQueen didn't have a lot of recovery time from his first couture show, in January, to his first ready-to-wear collection for Givenchy on Wednesday night. It takes a certain nerve to face an audience that panned your work two months earlier. But Mr. McQueen has that particular nerve, and a lot of other ones as well. Mr. McQueen matured so much in that short space of time, he seems a bit like the Robin Williams character in the film ''Jack.'' Between them, Mr. McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld produce 18 collections a year for houses that collectively bring in more revenue than many countries, now that Mr. McQueen has added men's wear to his own house and has taken on Givenchy's haute couture and ready-to-wear. And even though Mr. Lagerfeld is leaving his post at Chloe after his show on Friday, his collections for Chanel's haute couture and ready-to-wear, Fendi's furs, and the two collections he creates for his own house still seem an unfathomable amount of work.

The Chanel Jacket: An Icon Adorned

After the costumes and theatrics of the first days of the spring and summer ready-to-wear showings, the clothes have begun to demand some serious attention. Well, maybe not all the clothes, but certainly the decorative elements. The embellishments make the difference this season, and no designer knows it better than Karl Lagerfeld. He took probably the best-recognized designer jacket in the world, Chanel's, and gave it pizazz with gold braid, pearl edging and gobs of chunky gold jewelry. He paired it with short chiffon draped skirts, long sheer pants, stretch miniskirts: almost anything but the conventional below-the-knee skirt Chanel herself favored. The finale was a brilliant medley of the basic jacket in ivory-colored monotone tweed tossed over clothes of every possible description, including long evening skirts and draped dresses. It showed a magnificent understanding of fashion as it is today. Other versions of the jacket in beige cotton with lace edges or linen were swinging and casual as the models skimmed along the runway in flat shoes including T-straps in beige linen and clear plastic. With bright cerise, aqua or orange jackets and draped black chiffon skirts, they wore tall spool-shaped heels. The Durability of a Classic

Sportswear: Chanel and a Touch of Tahiti

Sportswear, meaning casual dressing, this country's main contribution to world fashion, has undergone a sea change in the spring collections shown in New York this week. Chanel of the 1930's has emerged as a major influence, expressed in carloads of gold buttons, acres of white pleated skirts and plenty of navy jackets. This borrowed finery is meant to express the elegance of a bygone era, and it happens to work just as well in this country as it does in the European collections. Karl Lagerfeld, the current designer at Chanel, has done his midwifery well. He has made current again the work of one of this century's giant design talents. Dell'Olio's Homage to Gaugin Louis Dell'Olio added still another element yesterday in his collection for Anne Klein & Company, a pillar of the sportswear industry here. Slipping in from left field, his homage to Gauguin was reflected in tropical prints, sarong skirts and in the sun-drenched colors of the artist's Tahitian paintings. A fresh version of the ethnic themes that balance the Chanel look in many of the European collections, it is welcome.

Chanel's Foot Soldiers Advance

IT'S the kind of exquisitely simple and unfettered design that several generations of stylish women have come to expect from the House of Chanel. This particular one is a collarless jacket with two precise rows of brass buttons down the front, each button bearing the familiar logo with interlocking C's. The jacket is the brainchild of Chanel's resident innovator, Karl Lagerfeld, who has picked up the traditions of the Great Coco as skillfully as Astaire did the tango. But there is no fancy footwork in evidence here, just long, clean lines defined by the princess shaping and a high, collarless ring neckline that flatters the wearer by gently elongating her neckline, and, by the way, provides an ideal setting for a single strand of pearls. Or, now that the weather is turning colder, a turtleneck sweater. Two other styles have collars. The nice touches don't stop there, of course. There are generous, bellows patch pockets, their flaps held down by those golden buttons, and a half-belt in back that is similarly secured.

THING; The Chanel Platform

By William Grimes Published: May 17, 1992 WHAT: Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel's designer, has canonized the cork-soled platform sandal. The price is a reassuring $615, which includes: one two-inch cork sole, one four-and-a-half-inch cork heel, one black suede-on-leather vamp and one ankle strap with Velcro closure, joined to the sole by two suede-on-leather strips. The shoe extends the silhouette of Chanel's lower hemlines, which can look dowdy with flat shoes. The look is monumental, even architectural. The ground floor presents massed forms that look like pitted sandstone. The second story elaborates a sophisticated line that plays off against the bulk below. The shoe is paradoxical. It overturns the meaning of the sandal, a creature of sunlight and fresh air, but here enlisted into sinister nighttime service. The sole is bulky but lightweight, a natural, untreated material put to the uses of artifice. The woman who stands atop the Chanel pedestal sacrifices movement for display, action for adoration. WHY: With its elegant ankle harness, the Chanel sandal presents the foot as a beautiful slave. The shoe fits like a horse's bridle.