Contents

01. Early Life

02. Personal Life

03. Established Conturiere

04. World War II

05. Activity As Nazi Agent

06. Post-Wae Life and Career

07. Last Years

08. Death

09. Legacy As Designer

01
 01. Early Life
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born in 1883 to Eu-
génie Jeanne Devolle Chanel, known as Jeanne, a
laundrywoman, in the charity hospital run by the
Sisters of Providence (a poorhouse) in Saumur,
Maine-et-Loire. She was Jeanne’s second child
with Albert Chanel; the first, Julia, had been born
less than a year earlier. Albert Chanel was an itin-
erant street vendor who peddled work clothes and
undergarments, living a nomadic life, traveling to
and from market to wns. The family resided in run-
down lodgings. In 1884, he married Jeanne Devol-
le, persuaded to legitimate his children by her
family who had “united, effectively, to pay Albert”.

At birth, Chanel’s name was entered into the official

registry as “Chasnel”. Jeanne was too unwell to at-
tend the registration, and Albert was registered as
“traveling”. With both parents absent, the infant’s last
name was misspelled, probably due to a clerical error.

She went to her grave as Gabrielle Chasnel be-

cause to correct, legally, the misspelled name on
her birth certificate would reveal that she was born
in a poor house hospice. The couple had six chil-
drenJulia, Gabrielle, Alphonse (the first boy, born
1885), Antoinette (born 1887), Lucien, and Augustin
(who died at six months) and lived crowded into a
one-room lodging in the town of Brive-la-Gaillarde.

When Gabrielle was 11, Jeanne died at the age of

The children did not attend school. Her father sent

02
 his two sons to work as farm laborers and sent his
three daughters to the convent of Aubazine, which
ran an orphanage. Its religious order, the Congre-
gation of the Sacred Heart of Mary, was “founded
to care for the poor and rejected, including run-
ning homes for abandoned and orphaned girls”. It
was a stark, frugal life, demanding strict discipline.
Placement in the orphanage may have contribut-
ed to Chanel’s future career, as it was where she
learned to sew. At age eighteen, Chanel, too old
to remain at Aubazine, went to live in a boarding
house for Catholic girls in the town of Moulins.

Later in life, Chanel would retell the story of her

childhood somewhat differently; she would of-
ten include more glamorous accounts, which
were generally untrue. She said that when her
mother died, her father sailed for America to
seek his fortune, and she was sent to live with
two aunts. She also claimed to have been born
a decade later than 1883 and that her mother
had died when she was much younger than 11.

03
 02. Personal Life

Having learned to sew during her six years at Aubazine, Chanel found em-
ployment as a seamstress. When not sewing, she sang in a cabaret frequent-
ed by cavalry officers. Chanel made her stage debut singing at a cafe-concert
(a popular entertainment venue of the era) in a Moulins pavilion, La Rotonde.
She was a poseuse, a performer who entertained the crowd between star turns.
The money earned was what they managed to accumulate when the plate was
passed. It was at this time that Gabrielle acquired the name “Coco” when she
spent her nights singing in the cabaret, often the song, “Who Has Seen Coco?”
She often liked to say the nickname was given to her by her father. Others be-
lieve “Coco” came from Ko Ko Ri Ko, and Qui qu’a vu Coco, or it was an al-
lusion to the French word for kept woman, cocotte. As an entertainer, Chanel
radiated a juvenile allure that tantalized the military habitués of the cabaret.

In 1906, Chanel worked in the spa resort town of Vichy. Vichy boasted a pro-
fusion of concert halls, theatres, and cafés where she hoped to achieve suc-
cess as a performer. Chanel’s youth and physical charms impressed those for
whom she auditioned, but her singing voice was marginal and she failed to find
stage work. Obliged to find employment, she took work at the Grande Grille,
where as a donneuse d’eau she was one whose job was to dispense glasses of
the purportedly curative mineral water for which Vichy was renowned. When
the Vichy season ended, Chanel returned to Moulins, and her former haunt La
Rotonde. She realized then that a serious stage career was not in her future.

04
Balsan and Capel
At Moulins, Chanel met a young French ex-cavalry officer and textile heir, Éti-
enne Balsan. At the age of twenty-three, Chanel became Balsan’s mistress,
supplanting the courtesan Émilienne d’Alençon as his new favourite. For the
next three years, she lived with him in his château Royallieu near Compiègne,
an area known for its wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life. It was a
lifestyle of self-indulgence. Balsan’s wealth allowed the cultivation of a social
set that reveled in partying and the gratification of human appetites, with all the
implied accompanying decadence. Balsan showered Chanel with the baubles
of “the rich life” diamonds, dresses, and pearls. Biographer Justine Picardie,
in her 2010 study Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, suggests that the
fashion designer’s nephew, André Palasse, supposedly the only child of her
sister Julia-Berthe who had committed suicide, was Chanel’s child by Balsan.

In 1908, Chanel began an affair with one of Balsan’s friends, Captain Arthur
Edward ‘Boy’ Capel. In later years, Chanel reminisced of this time in her life:
“two gentlemen were outbidding for my hot little body.” Capel, a wealthy
member of the English upper class, installed Chanel in an apartment in Paris,
and financed her first shops. It is said that Capel’s sartorial style influenced
the conception of the Chanel look. The bottle design for Chanel No. 5 had
two probable origins, both attributable to her association with Capel. It is be-
lieved Chanel adapted the rectangular, bevelled lines of the Charvet toiletry
bottles he carried in his leather travelling case or she adapted the design of
the whiskey decanter Capel used. She so much admired it that she wished
to reproduce it in “exquisite, expensive, delicate glass”. The couple spent
time together at fashionable resorts such as Deauville, but despite Chanel’s
hopes that they would settle together, Capel was never faithful to her. Their
affair lasted nine years. Even after Capel married an English aristocrat, Lady
Diana Wyndham in 1918, he did not completely break off with Chanel. He died
in a car accident on 22 December 1919. A roadside memorial at the site of
Capel’s accident is said to have been commissioned by Chanel. Twenty-five
years after the event, Chanel, then residing in Switzerland, confided to her
friend, Paul Morand, “His death was a terrible blow to me. In losing Capel, I

05
lost everything. What followed was not a life of happiness, I have to say.”

Chanel had begun designing hats while living with Balsan, initially as a di-
version that evolved into a commercial enterprise. She became a licensed
milliner in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris, named
Chanel Modes. As this location already housed an established clothing
business, Chanel sold only her millinery creations at this address. Chanel’s
millinery career bloomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorziat wore
her hats in Fernand Nozière’s play Bel Ami in 1912. Subsequently, Dorzi-
at modelled Chanel’s hats again in photographs published in Les Modes.

Deauville and Biarritz

In 1913, Chanel opened a boutique in Deauville, financed by Arthur Capel,
where she introduced deluxe casual clothing suitable for leisure and sport.
The fashions were constructed from humble fabrics such as jersey and tri-
cot, at the time primarily used for men’s underwear. The location was a prime
one, in the center of town on a fashionable street. Here Chanel sold hats,
jackets, sweaters, and the marinière, the sailor blouse. Chanel had the dedi-
cated support of two family members, her sister Antoinette, and her paternal
aunt Adrienne, who was of a similar age. Adrienne and Antoinette were re-
cruited to model Chanel’s designs; on a daily basis the two women paraded
through the town and on its boardwalks, advertising the Chanel creations.

Chanel, determined to re-create the success she enjoyed in Deauville,

opened an establishment in Biarritz in 1915. Biarritz, on the Côte Basque,
close to wealthy Spanish clients, was a playground for the moneyed set
and those exiled from their native countries by the war.[30] The Biarritz
shop was installed not as a store-front, but in a villa opposite the casino.
After one year of operation, the business proved to be so lucrative that in
1916 Chanel was able to reimburse Capel’s original investment. In Biar-
ritz Chanel met an expatriate aristocrat, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich
of Russia. They had a romantic interlude, and maintained a close asso-
ci tion for many years afterward.By 1919, Chanel was registered as a cou-
turière and established her maison de couture at 31 rue Cambon, Paris.

06
 03. Established Conturiere
In 1918, Chanel purchased the building at 31 rue Cambon, in one of the
most fashionable districts of Paris. In 1921, she opened an early in-
carnation of a fashion boutique, featuring clothing, hats, and accesso-
ries, later expanded to offer jewellery and fragrances. By 1927, Chanel
owned five properties on the rue Cambon, buildings numbered 23 to 31.

In the spring of 1920, Chanel was introduced to the

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky by Sergei Di-
aghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes. During
the summer, Chanel discovered that the Stravinsky
family sought a place to live, having left the Russian
Soviet Republic after the war. She invited them to
her new home, Bel Respiro, in the Paris suburb of
Garches, until they could find a suitable residence.
They arrived at Bel Respiro during the second week
of September and remained until May 1921. Chanel
also guaranteed the new (1920) Ballets Russes
production of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps
(‘The Rite of Spring’) against financial loss with
an anonymous gift to Diaghilev, said to be 300,000
francs. In addition to turning out her couture col-
Chanel (right) in her hat shop, lections, Chanel threw herself into designing dance
1919. Caricature by Sem. costumes for the Ballets Russes. In the years 1923-
1937, she collaborated on productions choreo-
graphed by Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky,
notably Le Train bleu, a dance-opera; Orphée and
Oedipe Roi. She developed a romantic relationship
with Igor Stravinsky during this time and went on
tour around the world with him, unknown to his wife.

07
In 1922, at the Longchamps races, Théophile Bader, founder of the Paris Gal-
eries Lafayette, introduced Chanel to businessman Pierre Wertheimer. Bad-
er was interested in selling Chanel No. 5 in his department store. In 1924,
Chanel made an agreement with the Wertheimer brothers, Pierre and Paul,
directors since 1917 of the eminent perfume and cosmetics house Bour-
jois. They created a corporate entity, Parfums Chanel, and the Wertheimers
agreed to provide full financing for the production, marketing, and distri-
bution of Chanel No. 5. The Wertheimers would receive seventy percent
of the profits, and Théophile Bader twenty percent. For ten percent of the
stock, Chanel licensed her name to Parfums Chanel and withdrew from in-
volvement in business operations. Later, unhappy with the arrangement,
Chanel worked for more than twenty years to gain full control of Parfums
Chanel.She said that Pierre Wertheimer was “the bandit who screwed me”.

One of Chanel’s longest enduring associations was

with Misia Sert, a member of the bohemian elite in
Paris and wife of Spanish painter José-Maria Sert.
It is said that theirs was an immediate bond of
kindred souls, and Misia was attracted to Chanel
by “her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal
destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled
everyone”. Both women were convent-schooled,
and maintained a friendship of shared interests
and confidences. They also shared drug use. By
1935, Chanel had become a habitual drug user,
injecting herself with morphine on a daily basis:
a habit she maintained to the end of her life. Ac-
cording to Chandler Burr’s The Emperor of Scent,
Luca Turin related an apocryphal story in circu-
lation that Chanel was “called Coco because she
threw the most fabulous cocaine parties in Paris”.

08
The writer Colette, who moved in the same social circles as Chanel, provided
a whimsical description of Chanel at work in her atelier, which appeared in
Prisons et Paradis (1932):

If every human face bears a resemblance to some animal, then Mademoi-

selle Chanel is a small black bull. That tuft of curly black hair, the attribute
of bull-calves, falls over her brow all the way to the eyelids and dances with
every maneuver of her head

Associations with British aristocrats

In 1923, Vera Bate Lombardi, (born Sarah Gertrude

Arkwright), reputedly the illegitimate daughter of
the Marquess of Cambridge, offered Chanel en-
try into the highest levels of British aristocracy.
It was an elite group of associations revolving
around such figures as politician Winston Chur-
chill, aristocrats such as the Duke of Westminster
and royals such as Edward, Prince of Wales. In
Monte Carlo in 1923, at age forty, Chanel was in-
troduced by Lombardi to the vastly wealthy Duke
of Westminster, Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor,
known to his intimates as “Bendor”. The duke
lavished Chanel with extravagant jewels, costly
art and a home in London’s prestigious Mayfair
district. His affair with Chanel lasted ten years.

The duke, an outspoken antisemite, intensified

Chanel’s inherent antipathy toward Jews. He shared
with her an expressed homophobia. In 1946, Chanel
was quoted by her friend and confidant, Paul Morand,

09
 Homosexuals? ... I have seen young women ruined by these awful queers:
drugs, divorce, scandal. They will use any means to destroy a competitor
and to wreak vengeance on a woman. The queers want to be women but
they are lousy women. They are charming!

Coinciding with her introduction to the duke was her introduction, again through
Lombardi, to Lombardi’s cousin, the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII. The prince
allegedly was smitten with Chanel and pursued her in spite of her involve-
ment with the Duke of Westminster. Gossip had it that he visited Chanel in her
apartment and requested that she call him “David”, a privilege reserved only
for his closest friends and family. Years later, Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue,
would insist that “the passionate, focused and fiercely-independent Chanel, a
virtual tour de force”, and the Prince “had a great romantic moment together”.

In 1927, the Duke of Westminster gave Chanel a parcel of land he had purchased
in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riviera. Chanel built a villa here, which
she called La Pausa(‘restful pause’), hiring the architect Robert Streitz. Stre-
itz’s concept for the staircase and patio contained design elements inspired by
Aubazine, the orphanage where Chanel spent her youth. When asked why she
did not marry the Duke of Westminster, she is supposed to have said: “There
have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel.”

During Chanel’s affair with the Duke of Westminster in the 1930s, her style
began to reflect her personal emotions. Her inability to reinvent the little black
dress was a sign of such reality. She began to design a “less is more” aesthetic.

10
Designing for film
In 1931, while in Monte Carlo Chanel became acquainted with Samu-
el Goldwyn. She was introduced through a mutual friend, the Grand Duke
Dmitri Pavlovich, cousin to the last tsar of Russia, Nicolas II. Goldwyn of-
fered Chanel a tantalizing proposition. For the sum of a million dollars (ap-
proximately US$75 million today), he would bring her to Hollywood twice
a year to design costumes for his stars. Chanel accepted the offer. Ac-
companying her on her first trip to Hollywood was her friend, Misia Sert.
En route to California from New York, travelling in
a white train carriage luxuriously outfitted for her
use, Chanel was interviewed by Collier’s magazine
in 1932. She said that she had agreed to go to Holly-
wood to “see what the pictures have to offer me and
what I have to offer the pictures”. Chanel designed
the clothing worn on screen by Gloria Swanson, in
Tonight or Never (1931), and for Ina Claire in The
Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932). Both Greta
Garbo and Marlene Dietrich became private clients.

Her experience with American film making left

Chanel with a dislike for Hollywood’s film business
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and a distaste for the film world’s culture, which
Romanov in exile in the 1920s she called “infantile”. Chanel’s verdict was that
“Hollywood is the capital of bad taste ... and it is
vulgar.” Ultimately, her design aesthetic did not translate well to film. The New
Yorker speculated that Chanel left Hollywood because “they told her her dresses
weren’t sensational enough. She made a lady look like a lady. Hollywood wants
a lady to look like two ladies.” Chanel went on to design the costumes for several
French films, including Jean Renoir’s 1939 film La Règle du jeu, in which she was
credited as La Maison Chanel. Chanel introduced the left-wing Renoir to Luchi-
no Visconti, aware that the shy Italian hoped to work in film. Renoir was favor-
ably impressed by Visconti and brought him in to work on his next film project.

11
 04. World War II
In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Chanel closed her shops, main-
taining her apartment situated above the couture house at 31 Rue de Cam-
bon. She said that it was not a time for fashion; as a result of her action,
4,000 female employees lost their jobs. Her biographer Hal Vaughan suggests
that Chanel used the outbreak of war as an opportunity to retaliate against
those workers who had striked for higher wages and shorter work hours in
the French general labor strike of 1936. In closing her couture house, Chanel
made a definitive statement of her political views. Her dislike of Jews, re-
portedly sharpened by her association with society elites, had solidified her
beliefs. She shared with many of her circle a conviction that Jews were a
threat to Europe because of the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union.

During the German occupation, Chanel resided at the Hotel Ritz. It was note-
worthy as the preferred place of residence for upper-echelon German mil-
itary staff. During this time, she had a romantic liaison with Baron Hans
Günther von Dincklage [de], a German aristocrat and member of Dinck-
lage noble family. He served as diplomat in Paris and was a former Prus-
sian Army officer and attorney general who had been an operative in mil-
itary intelligence since 1920, who eased her arrangements at the Ritz.

12
Bottle for control of Perfums Chanel
Sleeping with the Enemy, Coco Chanel and the Secret War written by Hal Vaughan
further solidifies the consistencies of the French intelligence documents re-
leased by describing Chanel as a “vicious antisemite” who praised Hitler.

World War II, specifically the Nazi seizure of all Jewish-owned prop-
erty and business enterprises, provided Chanel with the opportuni-
ty to gain the full monetary fortune generated by Parfums Chanel and its
most profitable product, Chanel No. 5. The directors of Parfums Chanel,
the Wertheimers, were Jewish. Chanel used her position as an “Ary-
an” to petition German officials to legalize her claim to sole ownership.

On 5 May 1941, she wrote to the government administrator charged with

ruling on the disposition of Jewish financial assets. Her grounds for pro-
prietary ownership were based on the claim that Parfums Chanel “is still
the property of Jews” and had been legally “abandoned” by the owners.

She wrote:

I have an indisputable right of priority ... the prof-

its that I have received from my creations since
the foundation of this business ... are dispropor-
tionate ... [and] you can help to repair in part the
prejudices I have suffered in the course of these
seventeen years.

13
Chanel was not aware that the Wertheimers, anticipating the forthcoming Nazi
mandates against Jews had, in May 1940, legally turned control of Parfums
Chanel over to Félix Amiot, a Christian French businessman and industrialist.
At war’s end, Amiot returned “Parfums Chanel” to the hands of the Wertheimers.

During the period directly following the end of World War II, the business
world watched with interest and some apprehension the ongoing legal
wrestle for control of Parfums Chanel. Interested parties in the proceed-
ings were cognizant that Chanel’s Nazi affiliations during wartime, if made
public knowledge, would seriously threaten the reputation and status of
the Chanel brand. Forbes magazine summarized the dilemma faced by the
Wertheimers: [it is Pierre Wertheimer’s worry] how “a legal fight might illu-
minate Chanel’s wartime activities and wreck her image and his business.”

Chanel hired René de Chambrun, Vichy France

prime minister Pierre Laval’s son-in-law, as her
lawyer to sue Wertheimer. Ultimately, the Wert-
heimers and Chanel came to a mutual accommo-
dation, renegotiating the original 1924 contract. On
17 May 1947, Chanel received wartime profits from
the sale of Chanel No. 5, an amount equivalent to
some US$12 million in 2022 valuation. Her future
share would be two percent of all Chanel No. 5 sales
worldwide (projected to gross her $34 million a year
as of 2022), making her one of the richest women in
the world at the time the contract was renegotiated.
In addition, Pierre Wertheimer agreed to an unusu-
al stipulation proposed by Chanel herself: Wert-
heimer agreed to pay all of Chanel’s living expens-
es from the trivial to the large for the rest of her life.

14
 05. Activity As Nazi Agent

Suspicions of Coco Chanel’s involvement first be-

gan when German tanks entered Paris and began
the Nazi occupation. Chanel immediately sought
refuge in the deluxe Hotel Ritz, which was also
used as the headquarters of the German military.
It was at the Hotel Ritz where she fell in love with
Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, working in
the German embassy close to the Gestapo. When
the Nazi occupation of France began, Chanel de-
cided to close her store, claiming a patriotic moti-
vation behind such decision. However, when she
moved into the same Hotel Ritz that was housing
the German military, her motivations became clear
to many. While many women in France were pun-
ished for “horizontal collaboration” with German
officers, Chanel faced no such action. At the time
of the French liberation in 1944, Chanel left a note
SS-Oberführer Walter Schellen- in her store window explaining Chanel No. 5 to be
berg, Chief of SS intelligence, the
free to all GIs. During this time, she fled to Swit-
Sicherheitsdienst
zerland to avoid criminal charges for her collabo-
rations as a Nazi spy. After the liberation, she was
known to have been interviewed in Paris by Mal-
colm Muggeridge, who at the time was an officer in
British military intelligence, about her relationship
with the Nazis during the occupation of France.

15
 06. Post-Wae Life and Career

In 1945, Chanel moved to Switzerland, where

she lived for several years, part of the time with
Dincklage. In 1953 she sold her villa La Pau-
sa on the French Riviera to the publisher and
translator Emery Reves. Five rooms from La
Pausa have been replicated at the Dallas Muse-
um of Art, to house the Reves’ art collection as
well as pieces of furniture belonging to Chanel.

Unlike the pre-war era, when women reigned as

the premier couturiers, Christian Dior achieved
success in 1947 with his “New Look”, and a
cadre of male designers achieved recognition:
Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Robert Piguet, and
Jacques Fath. Chanel was convinced that wom-
en would ultimately rebel against the aesthetic
favoured by the male couturiers, what she called
“illogical” design: the “waist cinchers, pad-
ded bras, heavy skirts, and stiffened jackets”.

At more than 70 years old, after having her couture

house closed for 15 years, she felt the time was right
for her to re-enter the fashion world. The revival of her
couture house in 1954 was fully financed by Chanel’s
opponent in the perfume battle, Pierre Wertheimer.

16
 When Chanel came out with her comeback collec-
tion in 1954, the French press were cautious due
to her collaboration during the war and the contro-
versy of the collection. However, the American and
British press saw it as a “breakthrough”, bringing
together fashion and youth in a new way. Betti-
na Ballard, the influential editor of the US Vogue,
remained loyal to Chanel, and featured the mode
Marie-Hélène Arnaud the “face of Chanel” in the
1950s in the March 1954 issue, photographed by
Henry Clarke, wearing three outfits: a red dress
with a V-neck paired with ropes of pearls; a tiered
seersucker evening gown; and a navy jersey mid-
calf suit. Arnaud wore this outfit, “with its slightly
padded, square shouldered cardigan jacket, two
patch pockets and sleeves that unbuttoned back
to reveal crisp white cuffs”, above “a white muslin
blouse with a perky collar and bow [that] stayed
perfectly in place with small tabs that buttoned
onto the waistline of an easy A-line skirt.” Bal-
lard had bought the suit herself, which gave “an
overwhelming impression of insouciant, youth-
ful elegance”, and orders for the clothing that Ar-
naud had modelled soon poured in from the US.

17
07. Last Years

According to Edmonde
Charles-Roux, Chanel
had become tyrannical
and extremely lonely
late in life. In her last
years she was some-
times accompanied by
Jacques Chazot and her
confidante Lilou Mar-
quand. A faithful friend
was also the Brazil-
ian Aimée de Heeren,
who lived in Paris four
months a year at the
nearby Hôtel Meurice.
The former rivals shared
happy memories of
times with the Duke of
Westminster. They fre-
quently strolled togeth-
er through central Paris.

18
 08. Death
As 1971 began, Chanel
was 87 years old, tired,
and ailing. She carried
out her usual routine of
preparing the spring cat-
alogue. She had gone for
a long drive on the after-
noon of Saturday, 9 Jan-
uary. Soon after, feeling
ill, she went to bed ear-
ly. She announced her
final words to her maid
which were: “You see,
this is how you die.”
Lifar, Jacques Chazot, Yves Saint Laurent and
Marie-Hélène de Rothschild attended her funeral
She died on Sunday,
in the Church of the Madeleine. Her grave is in the
10 January 1971, at
Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, Lausanne, Switzerland.
the Hotel Ritz, where
she had resided for
Most of her estate was inherited by her neph-
more than 30 years.
ew André Palasse, who lived in Switzerland,
and his two daughters, who lived in Paris.
Her funeral was held at
the Église de la Made-
Although Chanel was viewed as a prominent
leine; her fashion mod-
figure of luxury fashion during her life, Chanel’s
els occupied the first
influence has been examined further after her
seats during the cer-
death in 1971. When Chanel died, the first lady
emony and her coffin
of France, Mme Pompidou, organized a he-
was covered with white
ro’s tribute. Soon, damaging documents from
flowers camellias, gar-
French intelligence agencies were released
denias, orchids, aza-
that outlined Chanel’s wartime involvements,
leas and a few red ros-
quickly ending her monumental funeral plans.
es. Salvador Dalí, Serge

19
 09. Legacy As Designer

As early as 1915, Harper’s Bazaar raved over Chanel’s designs: “The

woman who hasn’t at least one Chanel is hopelessly out of fashion ...
This season the name Chanel is on the lips of every buyer.” Chanel’s as-
cendancy was the official deathblow to the corseted female silhouette.
The frills, fuss, and constraints endured by earlier generations of wom-
en were now passé; under her influence gone were the “aigrettes, long
hair, hobble skirts”. Her design aesthetic redefined the fashionable wom-
an in the post World War I era. The Chanel trademark look was of youth-
ful ease, liberated physicality, and unencumbered sportive confidence.

The horse culture and penchant for hunting so passionately pursued

by the elites, especially the British, fired Chanel’s imagination. Her own
enthusiastic indulgence in the sporting life led to clothing designs in-
formed by those activities. From her excursions on water with the yacht-
ing world, she appropriated the clothing associated with nautical pur-
suits: the horizontal striped shirt, bell-bottom pants, crewneck sweaters,
and espadrille shoes all traditionally worn by sailors and fishermen.

20
 Jewelry

Jersey Fabric

Chanel suit

The Chanel bag

Camellia

Slavic influence
Perfume

21
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03. https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/modelegende-chanel-a-947864.html

04. https://archive.org/details/chanelintimateli0000chan/page/n5/mode/2up

05. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel#References

Thank you...!

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