Gabrielle bonheur chanel

She was born on August 19th, 1883 in Saumur, France. She would later claim that she was born in 1893 to appear 10 years younger.

Gabrielle not only tried to disguise her age but her birth place also. She was born in the a workhouse in Loire Valley where her unmarried mother gave birth to her. But she claims she was born in Auvergne.

Chanel's mother died when she was only six leaving her and 4 other siblings to their father. Her father quickly reached out to relatives for help, but Chanel didn't go with a relative she went to the orphanage of the Catholic monastery of Aubazine, where she learned the trade of a seamstress.

School vacations were spent with relatives in the provincial capital of Moulins where Gabrielle learned to sew with more flourish than the nuns at the monastery had been able to teach her. When she turned 18, she left the orphanage, and took up work for a local tailor.

Later, when questioned, Chanel would claim that when her mother died, her father sailed for America and she was sent to live with two cold-hearted spinster aunts. All this was done to diminish the stigma that poverty, orphanhood, and illegitimacy bestowed upon unfortunates in 19th-century France.

It was during a brief stint as a singer in cafes and concert halls that Gabrielle adopted the name Coco, a nickname given to her by local soldiers who went to watch her.

World War I led her to move to the resort town of Deauvile, where Chanel became the mistress of a rich ex-military officer and textile heir Etienne Balsan in 1908. At the age of 23, she became his mistress and moved into his chateau, where she lived for three years. It was here that she started designing and creating hats as a diversion, which then turned into a commercial venture.

She then started a relationship with a wealthy English Industrialist called Arthur Edward 'Boy' Capel who was a friend of Balsan. He installed her into a Parisian apartment and financed her first shops. The relationship lasted nine years, even after Capel married in 1918.

Through the patronage and connections that these men provided she was able to open her own millinery shop in Paris in 1910 and she soon had boutiques in both Deauville and Biarritz. In 1919, the single most devastating event of her life occurred when Capel was killed in a car accident. She commissioned a roadside memorial at the site of the accident.

During the 1920s, Coco Chanel became the first designer to create loose women's jersey, traditionally used for men's underwear, creating a relaxed style for women ignoring the stiff corseted look of the time. They soon became very popular with clients, a post-war generation of women for whom the corseted restricted clothing seemed old-fashioned and impractical.

By the 1920s, Maison Chanel was established at 31, rue Cambon in Paris (which remains its headquarters to this day) and become a fashion force to be reckoned with. Chanel became a style icon herself with her striking bob haircut and tan placing her at the cutting edge of modern style.

In 1922, she launched the fragrance Chanel No. 5, which remains popular to this day. Two years later, Pierre Wertheimer became her business partner (taking on 70% of the fragrance business). The Wertheimers continue to control the perfume company today

In 1925, Chanel launched her signature cardigan jacket, and the following year matched its success with her little black dress. Both items continue to be a staple part of every Chanel collection.

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.

Hollywood stars including Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly fell in love with her effortlessly stylish boxy cardigan suits. During her life, Coco Chanel also designed costumes for the stage, including Cocteau's 'Antigone' (1923) and 'Oedipus Rex' (1937) and cinematic works such as 'La Regle de Jeu'.

A Broadway musical of her life opened in 1969, with Katharine Hepburn taking the role of Chanel. Karl Lagerfeld has been chief designer of Chanel's fashion house since 1982. His ability to continuously mine the Chanel archive for inspiration testifies to the importance of Coco Chanel's contribution to the world of fashion.

Coco Chanel died on January 10th, 1971. She worked until her death 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.

Quotes By chanel

• "A girl should be two things classy and fabulous."
• "In order to be irreplaceable one must be different." 
• "Fashion fades, only style remains the same."
• "Elegance is refusal."
• "Great loves too must be endured."