By 1913, thirty-year-old Gabrielle Chanel has two salons in France. Having borrowed money from Arthur Capel, with great excitement, she opens a store in the French resort of Biarritz, on the very border with Spain. With this milestone, the Chanel brand begins the conquest of Europe.
And already in 1915, a fashionable European magazine wrote: “A woman who does not have at least one Chanel dress in her wardrobe can be considered hopelessly behind fashion.”
After a century, things from Chanel desired by fashionistas can be listed endlessly: from classic coats to elegant brooches. Today, the House of Chanel has 150 boutiques around the world and hundreds of thousands of branded products.
According to some reports, the company's annual turnover is more than a billion dollars. And the brand's logo is one of the most recognizable and quoted in the fashion world, as is the name of its founder, the great Coco Chanel.
Who is she? How was this woman's life? Where is Gabrielle Chanel from? You will learn about all this by reading the article.
Coco
My father really didn't like the name Gabrielle. He was afraid thatI will be called Gabi. So he came up with the affectionate nickname Coco, which meant chicken.”
This beautiful story Gabrielle came up with to drown out the pain of an orphan childhood in which there was no father's love. The nickname Gabrielle Chanel received much later from the visitors of the cabaret "Rotonde", where she performed after shifts in the store. Several of the songs she sang featured this word all the time.
Gabrielle Chanel: biography, childhood
She was born on the nineteenth of August 1883 in an orphanage for the poor in the French town of Saumur. She got the name Gabrielle from a nurse nun at the orphanage hospital. Neither the mother - the daughter of an ordinary hard worker, nor the father - a traveling merchant, could come up with a name for the newborn. The girl became the second of five children in this family.
When she was 12, her mother died, exhausted by asthma. A father who had a passion for the road and drinking, and the trace caught a cold. Two sons, as abandoned, the authorities identified in a strange family, which received benefits for them, and the brothers plowed like damned. The three sisters briefly took root with their uncles and aunts, but soon ended up in a monastery orphanage.
Later, Chanel spoke of those events as unbearable blows for a child's soul, then she had to deeply feel what it was like to lose everything. This pain gave rise to a hopeless inferiority in the girl, which, to the very gray hairs, pushed her to desperately bold deeds.
Uncompromising, arrogant, insolent. Hatred of the idle lifestyle of the bohemians and a burning desire to earn on their own in order to reach everyonethe blessings of this life. Here is everything that Coco found in her difficult childhood. And this was useful to her in order to prove to him, who abandoned her to an indifferent person with a mediocre fate, that she exists and she is worthy of love. By the way, they never met their father again.
Singer
Two years after her native monastery, Coco spent in another boarding school, after which she was assigned to work in a bridal shop in the city of Moulin.
Quickly gaining trust from the store's customers, she took small orders home. But the dream of a career as an artist brought the Rotunda cafe to the stage, where she performed popular songs and won her first fame and attention from men.
The rumor about the young singer quickly spread throughout the small military town. And the lively orphan was kicked out of her respectable position in the store with a bang.
Paris
Meeting Etienne Baysan opened the door to another world. A military man, an aristocrat by birth, he had a huge inheritance and a glorious character. Their relationship began in the same "Rotonde".
Moving into his country house, the young provincial got access to social life, but never became Etienne's legal companion.
When Gabrielle Chanel, whose photo in her youth is presented to your attention in the article, decided to open an atelier, Baysan refused her a loan, but provided his Paris apartment for this purpose.
Despite the warm relationship, Etienne never confessed his love and did not burn with the desire to marry. His feelings flared up when his mistress went toto another. The other was his closest friend.
Fight
Arthur Capel, known to his friends as "Boy", was an orphan, but managed to create a fortune and was accepted in high society. With him, Koko realized that it is not necessary to be born rich - you can become one. Thanks to Boy, she launched a career as an entrepreneur.
He gave money for the workshop. He loaned them, because only with such a condition did the proud milliner accept them. So, in 1910, the first Chanel boutique appeared in Paris. At first there were hats, but later it was filled with other creations of the aspiring couturier.
In 1913 Arthur opened a second store in the resort town of Deauville. With the arrival of the Germans in France in 1914, many we althy refugees found themselves in Deauville. Gabrielle was able to repay all her debts to Capel and open another boutique in Biarritz, from where her march across Europe began.
And Etienne and Arthur, meanwhile, shared Coco for a whole year. At the same time, she was calmly doing business. Capel understood that this was a truly independent woman, and did not even try to make her his wife.
Fight remained the main love of her life. In 1919 he died in a car accident. The one who gave her everything made her relive a terrible feeling from childhood - complete emptiness and loneliness.
Gabrielle Chanel: personal life
Life went on. In 1920, Koko met Dmitry Pavlovich Romanov, the Grand Duke and cousin of the last Russian Tsar. He is young, handsome and unmarried. Their short relationshiphelp her forget her grief.
The Duke of Westminster was the richest man in England at that time. He arranged shows for her in London, without which one could not hope for success in Paris. Koko admitted that only with him did she feel protected and weak. He was able to replace her father. To marry her, the Duke divorced for three years, but due to the impossibility of having an heir from Gabriel, they nevertheless broke up.
Paul Irib is a talented artist and sculptor. He was the first and last man they actually intended to marry. He died in the hospital after suffering a heart attack in her arms. It happened during a tennis match, shortly before the scheduled wedding. After his death in 1935, Chanel could not sleep well for many years.
In the autumn of 1940, she begins dating a German subject, Hans Günther von Dinklage. Nobody approved of this relationship. Of course, Coco didn't care at all. Thanks to her relationship with Hans, she is expelled from the country, he follows her. But the family did not work out again, and at this Chanel stops looking for happiness in love, completely devoting herself to work.
War
By the 40s, Gabrielle Chanel, whose photo you see in the article, had five stores on Rue Cambon in Paris. With the Nazi occupation closed them all. During the war, she moved in the circles of the Nazis, because only then they could buy her goods. But, it should be noted that having a commercial interest, she never thought about political coups.
By the end of the warthe arrests of collaborators began - Koko was also interrogated. It is said that before entering the station, she said: "If I'm gone for a long time, call Churchill." She was not arrested, but was strongly advised to leave France for her association with the Nazis.
She could never forgive this Motherland. After spending 9 years in exile in Switzerland, Chanel bequeathed to be buried there.
Return
In 1954, 15 years after the House closed, she returned. But the sensation ended in failure - the public did not accept the collection. Chanel tore and threw. She could not give way to Dior, whose new bow Parisians valued for their pomp, deliberate decorativeness and bright colors. Coco has always promoted discreet luxury and dreamed not of seasonal style, but of noble classics.
With grim fury, she set about creating the second collection and came out the winner. She achieved recognition by pushing the men who reigned at that time on the Olympus of fashion.
Coco rose to never come down from the podium again. She brought comfort, beauty and elegance back into fashion. Her style is an eternal classic, a sign of good taste, a hymn to simplicity and luxury, the freedom to be yourself.
Care
On January 11, 1971, as she was getting ready for work, she felt unwell. The ampoule with the usual drug did not give in, only the maid could open it. But the injection did not help. She died of a heart attack in her replacement room at the Ritz Hotel inParis. It was the first day in her life when she did not show up for work.
Russian footprint in the life of Chanel
What "Russian trace" did the famous Coco Chanel leave? Here are some facts:
- Based on a Russian men's shirt, Coco came up with a blouse that has become a business classic for French women.
- The imperishable fragrance of Chanel No. 5 is the development of the Moscow perfumer Ernest Bo.
- Chanel invented the perfume bottle herself, taking as a basis a bottle of Russian vodka donated by Romanov.
- The first Diaghilev's Russian Seasons in Europe were paid for by Coco.
- When the "Russian Ballet" does not have enough money to pay for the funeral of Diaghilev in Venice, she will again take care of everything.
- Her home was home to the immigrant Russian intelligentsia.
Little Known Facts
Interesting facts from the life of Coco Chanel:
- Being nearsighted, she was embarrassed about glasses all her life and carried them in her bag.
- During a sea cruise, the Duke of Westminster gave her a rare emerald. After admiring the expensive-set stone, she threw it into the water.
- It wasn't until after her death that the world learned that Chanel reduced her age by 10 years.
- Since 1935, after the death of Paul Irib, she began to inject the semi-legal drug "Sedol" and did them until the end of her life. Chanel assured that she uses this medicine only once a day.
- With the "feed" of the Romanovs, she used cheap labor in the workshops - a refugee from Russia.
- Signature black toe on light shoes is her wayvisually shorten the fortieth size of the foot with a height of 169 cm.
- One of the first to invite famous people to advertise their brand by giving away promoted products.
Here is such an interesting personality - Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. Someone will envy her, someone will admire her… In any case, there is someone to take an example from…
