Biography
Famous fashion designer Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born on August 19 1883, in Saumur France. She was Jeanne's second child with Albert Chanel; the first, Julia, was born less than a year earlier. Her mother died when she was very young leaving her father with five children. Her father sent her to an orphanage in Aubazine where she learnt to sew. When Chanel was 18 she left the orphanage and took up work for the local tailor.
Gabrielle got the name Coco when she was a singer in World War I. World War I made her move to the resort town of Deauville. In 19080 Chanel became the mistress of a rich ex-military officer and textile heir called Etienne Balsan. At the age of 23, she moved into his chateau here she lived for 3 year. It was here that she started designing and creating hats. She then started a relationship with a wealthy English Industrialist called Arthur Edward Capel who was a friend of Balsan. He got her into a Paris apartment and financed her first shops. Their relationship lasted nine years, even after Capel married in 1918. In 1922 she launched her first perfume, Chanel NO.5, which is still incredible popular today. Two years later her business partner was Pierre Wertheimer taking 70% of the fragrance business. Pierre Wertheimer’s business still continues to control the perfume company today. In 1925 she introduced the now legendary Chanel suit. Her designs were beyond amazing for her time. Another 1920s revolutionary design was Chanel's little black dress. During World War II, Chanel was a nurse, although her post-war popularity was greatly diminished by her affair with a Nazi officer during the conflict and she moved to Switzerland to escape the controversy. However, she ended this self-imposed exile in 1954, returning to Paris when she took on Christian Dior's overtly feminine New Look. She expanded the signature style with the introduction of pea jackets and bell-bottoms for women. Her new collection, panned by the press in Europe, was a hit in the United States. Coco Chanel worked until her death in 1971 at the age of 88, spending her last moments in the style she had become accustomed to at her opulent private apartment in The Ritz. Since 1983, Karl Lagerfeld has been design director of the House of Chanel. |