Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, better known as Coco Chanel, was a woman of a great importance
not only in the history of fashion, but in the history of the 20th century.
She was born on the 29th of August 1883 in Saumúr, a little village in the northeast
of France.
Daughter of Albert Chanel, a street vendor, and Eugenie Jeanne Devolle, a peasant.
She had an older sister, Julia Berthe, and four younger siblings: Alphonse, Antoinette,
Lucien and Augustin, who died soon after being born.
Her first years of life were rough.
They lived under very precarious conditions, and when she was only 11 years old, her mom
died of bronchitis.
Her dad decided to give his kids in adoption.
The boys went with a host family of peasants and the girls to the orphanage of the Congregation
of the Sacred Heart of Mary, in the Monastery of Aubazine, in the CENTER of the country.
There, she learned how to sew, embroider and iron.
When she turned 18, she was sent to a religious boarding school in the town of Moulins.
She soon found a job helping a local dress maker, and during her free time she started
going to Cafés-Cabaréts, where she participated in small music shows.
She wanted to become a singer, and she moved to the touristic town Vichy to try some luck.
However, she would soon forget about that artistic project when she found out she didnt
really have a good voice, so she decided to go back to her old job.
But a new door opened for her when she was 23 and met a socialite and rich heir called
Etienne Balsan.
They fell in love and moved together to the Royallieu Castle , in the north of Paris,
where Coco had the opportunity to be around people from the high classes in society
The relationship came to an end, but in 1908, Coco met one of her life partners, the English
captain Arthur Edward Capel.
Even tho they never made their relationship official, they were very close to each other.
Arthur believed so much in Coco’s talent that he helped her fund her first stores in
Paris.
She started making hats for fun, which she later on showed in social events such as horse
racing.
Her creations called so much attention that in 1909 she opened a store in the city.
In 1913, she opened a second one in Deauville, in the Coast of Normandy, where she also sold
casual luxury clothes.
Coco Chanel’s designs stood out for breaking with the opulence of the times, creating a
line of simple and comfortable clothes, tho keeping their elegance.
When in 1915 she opened a new store in the luxurious coastal city of Biarritz, next to
the Spanish border, she earned enough money to give back the money her couple had invested
on her.
In 1916, she presented her first collection, published in the Vogue magazine, and soon
after, she established her fashion house, with more than 300 employees – she started
selling her clothes in the big stores in the US.
But in 1919, she suffered a hard setback when Arthur Cape, with whom she had been together
for about 10 years, died in a car accident.
In 191, Coco created her first perfume, Chanel Number 5.
Based in jasmine, the bottle was also designed by Coco herself, finding inspiration in the
dresser bottles Arthur used.
It was a total success, and she soon signed its distribution with Pierre Wertheimer, director
of the Bourjois Perfume and Cosmetics House.
However, the conditions of the contract were quite abusive, and Coco had to fight for years
to have the control of the commercialization of her fragrances back.
Thanks to her contacts, she accessed the high classes of the British society, where she
met the duke of Westminster, Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor.
She was in a relationship with him for 10 years.
When, years later, she was asked why she never married him, she would answer: “THERE HAVE
BEEN LOTS OF DUCHESSES OF WESTMINSTER.
BUT THERE IS ONLY ONE CHANEL”.
In 1931, she took a new LEAP in her career when she traveled to Hollywood and signed
a contract with the METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER to dress the great stars of the times, like Gloria
Swanson, Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich.
However, her designs didn’t really convince the cinematic mecca – they were looking
for something more sumptuous, and Coco herself left, disgusted by their bad taste.
By 1935, her company had 4 thousand employees, but she started losing her first place in
the fashion world with the emergence of other designers such as Elsa Schiaparelli, who presented
clothes full of festive and surreal details.
In 1939, when the second world war started, she closed all her stores except for the main
boutique – according to her, “THEY WERENT TIMES FOR FASHION”.
And here comes a controversial time in her life.
During the Nazi occupation in Paris, she lived in the Ritz Hotel, with the German high officers.
This, along with her influences with politicians, soliders and the high scoety led to accusations
of her collaborating with the Nazis.
However, both Coco and the CHANEL HOUSE always denied any type of implication.
After the war, she was interrogated by a RESEARCH COMMITTEE and set free.
The following ten years she lived in Lausáanne, Switzerland, away from the fashiond world,
until she decided it was time to come back, and in 1954, she re-opened her High Fahion
House.
Little by little, Coco Chanel was able to come back to the OLYMPUS OF FASHION.
Great PERSONALITIES such as Elizabeth Tylor, Grace Kelly, Maria Callas, Audrey Hepburn
or the first US DUCHESS Jackie Kennedy became AMBASSADORS of her style.
She created new parfumes such as “Pour Monsieur”, Chanel’s first Men Fragrance, and she also
TOOK THE LEAP to working with precious metals, designing her own line of jewels and costume
jewelery.
However, towards her last years, she started to isolate herself and become weaker and weaker
– the age – and she turned into a lonely person only accessible TO her closest friends.
In the beginning of 1971 she was working in her Spring Collection, when she suffered a
heart attack.
She died on January 10th in the Ritz Hotel in Paris, where she had been living for 30
years.
Coco Chanel’s great contribution to the FASHION WORLD and the looks of several generations
is evident.
She proved elegance can go hand TO HAND with comfort or PRAGMATISM, providing women with
lots of freedom when it came to clothes and DRESSING.
We are sure her style will be out there in the shop windows for a long long time.