Coco Chanel

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (/ʃəˈnɛl/ shə-NEL, French: [ɡabʁijɛl bɔnœʁ kɔko ʃanɛl] (listen); 19
August 1883 – 10 January 1971)[2] was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and
namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post–World War I era with popularizing a sporty,
casual chic as the feminine standard of style. This replaced the "corseted silhouette" that was dominant
beforehand with a style that was simpler, far less time consuming to put on and remove, more
comfortable, and less expensive, all without sacrificing elegance. She is the only fashion designer listed
on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.[3] A prolific fashion
creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her aesthetic design in
jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product,
and Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the
1920s.[4]
Her couture house closed in 1939, with the outbreak of World War II. Chanel stayed in France and was
criticized during the war for collaborating with the Nazi-German occupiers and the Vichy puppet regime
to boost her professional career. One of Chanel's liaisons was with a German diplomat, Baron (Freiherr)
Hans Günther von Dincklage.[5][6] After the war, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with
Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator due to intervention by British prime minister
Winston Churchill.[7] When the war ended, Chanel moved to Switzerland, returning to Paris in 1954 to
revive her fashion house. In 2011, Hal Vaughan published a biography about Chanel based on newly
declassified documents, revealing that she had collaborated directly with the Nazi intelligence service,
the Sicherheitsdienst. One plan in late 1943 was for her to carry an SS peace overture to Churchill to end
the war.[8]
Early life
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born in 1883 to Eugénie 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.[9]: 14 [10] She was Jeanne's second child with Albert Chanel; the first, Julia, had been born less
than a year earlier.[10] Albert Chanel was an itinerant street vendor who peddled work clothes and
undergarments,[11]: 27 living a nomadic life, traveling to and from market towns. The family resided in
run-down lodgings. In 1884, he married Jeanne Devolle,[9]: 16 persuaded to do so by her family who
had "united, effectively, to pay Albert".[9]: 16
At birth, Chanel's name was entered into the official registry as "Chasnel". Jeanne was too unwell to
attend the registration, and Albert was registered as "traveling".[9]: 16 With both parents absent, the
infant's last name was misspelled, probably due to a clerical error.[citation needed]
She went to her grave as Gabrielle Chasnel because to correct, legally, the misspelled name on her birth
certificate would reveal that she was born in a poor house hospice.[12] The couple had six[13] children—
Julia, Gabrielle, Alphonse (the first boy, born 1885), Antoinette (born 1887), Lucien, and Augustin (who
died at six months)[13]—and lived crowded into a one-room lodging in the town of Brive-la-Gaillarde.
[10]
When Gabrielle was 11,[4][14] Jeanne died at the age of 32.[9]: 18 [10] The children did not attend
school.[13] Her father sent 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 Congregation of the Sacred Heart
of Mary, was "founded to care for the poor and rejected, including running homes for abandoned and
orphaned girls".[9]: 27 It was a stark, frugal life, demanding strict discipline. Placement in the orphanage
may have contributed 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.[8]: 5
Later in life, Chanel would retell the story of her childhood somewhat differently; she would often
include more glamorous accounts, which were generally untrue.[10] 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.[15][16]

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Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (/ʃəˈnɛl/ shə-NEL, French: [ɡabʁijɛl bɔnœʁ kɔko ʃanɛl] (listen); 19

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