FASHION DESIGNER FRANCE[Coco is] the woman with the most sense in Europe.
—PABLO PICASSO, ARTIST
Gabrielle descended the staircase very, very carefully. Her ruffled purple velvet dress was long and heavy, and she was afraid she might trip. She couldn’t wait to get to the graduation ceremony and see the looks on the faces of all her wealthy classmates. They wouldn’t believe the lavish dress she had on—and they’d never guess she had designed and made it herself. But it was the look on her aunt’s face that caught her attention.
“What, my dear, are you wearing? That dress looks horrible on you! Purple is not your color at all, and I can hardly see you under all those folds and feathers.”
Gabrielle burst into tears and ran from the house as best she could in her awkward heels. She hated her cruel aunt, but Gabrielle knew in her heart that her aunt was right. She never looked good or felt at ease in the extravagant dresses that were the style. She loved simple, comfortable clothes. What was she doing in this hideous dress? She couldn’t wait for the night to end.
Coco got her name from a popular song she sang as a chanteuse, “Qui qu’a vu Coco?” (“Who Has Seen Coco?”) about a lost dog!
Gabrielle would later become famous as Coco Chanel and would make her simple style the very symbol of understated wealth and elegance. She would enter the elite world she always yearned to be a part of; she would influence what the rich and famous wore. But she would never discuss her childhood.
Few of her upper-class friends and clients knew that the queen of fashion grew up as a peasant girl, in Auvergne, France. Her family was poor, and her mother died of tuberculosis when Gabrielle was a child. Her father, a traveling peddler, abandoned twelve-year-old Gabrielle and her two sisters at an orphanage, and they never saw him again.
Gabrielle’s world was shattered, but she was too proud to show it. To the nuns at the orphanage, she was intelligent, a hard worker. As a teen she had to choose between becoming a nun and continuing school; she chose school. But it wasn’t easy. At the convent boarding school, wealthy students were kept separate from the charity cases like Gabrielle. She was humiliated by the distinction and decided to earn money for herself and her sisters by working as a seamstress.
Coco was not usually the jealous type when it came to her career, but one over-the-top designer so annoyed her that when they were introduced at a ball, Coco asked her to dance and then led her so close to a candelabra that her outrageous gown caught on fire!
For her school graduation, she worked night and day at a nearby aunt’s house to design an original dress. Influenced by the romance novels she read and the fashion of the day, Gabrielle created the gaudy, layered gown of purple velvet that prompted her aunt’s sharp comment. Never again would she stray from her own innate sense of style. Simple clothes in subtle colors would become her calling card.
Coco created the cardigan sweater when, on a cold day, she borrowed a boyfriend’s pullover. To keep from messing up her hair while putting it on, Coco cut it down the front and added a ribbon along the rough edge. Every woman who saw her that day had to have one. They’re still worn today.
After her graduation, she worked by day as a seamstress and by night as a chanteuse, or singer. It was in the Paris cabarets that she received her nickname, Coco. Although she didn’t have the best voice, Coco’s personality couldn’t be ignored; she was one of the most popular singers in Paris. Soon wealthy, influential men were courting her and introducing her to Europe’s high society.
Although she wanted to fit in with the counts and countesses, the dukes and duchesses, Coco was always a little different. The buxom women around her dressed in heavy layers of ruffles and fabrics and cinched their bodies tightly with girdles and corsets. Coco said of their outrageous hats, which weighed almost as much as they did, “How can the brain function in those things?”
Coco, a flat-chested tomboy who loved riding horses, knew she couldn’t compete with these fashion butterflies, so she showed off her slim figure and beautiful neck with simple outfits she made herself, even borrowing pants, shirts, and ties from her boyfriends. Her clothes were seen as radical, but her hats at least, were a hit. Instead of huge concoctions of fruit, flowers, and feathers, Coco designed smaller hats with a single feather, blossom, or even no adornment at all.
When she was twenty-five, Arthur Capel—a wealthy boyfriend—loaned Coco the money to start her own store and design studio in a posh Paris neighborhood. At first her look was criticized as “severe.” But with the First World War underway, even the wealthy women were working for the war effort. Out went the ornate dresses and hats, the elaborate underclothes. They were considered extravagant when men were suffering. In came simpler clothes: the jersey suit, the safari coat, and the little black dress. Coco designed outfits for a freer woman. Practicality was the rule; a woman had to be able to move easily in her clothes. Soon wealthy women of Paris and Europe demanded all her latest creations. Even the critics changed their tune and pronounced her clothes “elegant.”
Unlike most designers, Coco never used sketches or patterns to create her clothes. She just draped fabric on a live model, took out scissors and pins, and cut, pushed, and pulled the cloth until another Chanel outfit emerged.
Coco’s fashions echoed her childhood: simple cuts, like her old school uniforms, and neutral colors, especially black, like the nuns’ habits. These plain outfits were accented with ornate jewelry, like a church with its stained glass windows. She was also inspired by the clothes of the poor: a sailor’s pants and cap, a schoolgirl’s simple dress. Although they reflected her humble origins, Coco’s clothes weren’t cheap. After her years of poverty, she made sure her rich clients paid her well, and she knew that a high price tag would only make her more in demand. As the 1920s approached, Coco set the standard for the “new woman:” slim; boyish; with bobbed, carefree hair; and financially independent. By the time she turned thirty, she was at the top of the fashion world.
She was also at the top of the social world. Always torn between creativity and financial security, wealthy Coco surrounded herself with artists. Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Salvador Dalí—each counted Coco as a friend.
With her designs in high demand, Coco soon paid back her debt to Arthur Capel. But he married another woman soon afterward, since Coco’s lower-class background made her unsuitable for marriage in his eyes. Coco was devastated, but she continued to see him even after the marriage. Their relationship ended when Arthur died in a car crash. For the rest of her life, Coco dated many men but never married.
By the time she turned fifty, in 1933, Coco’s fashion empire employed nearly four thousand workers and sold close to twenty-eight designs each year! She also expanded into other areas of fashion. Her line of costume jewelry, which echoed the stained glass and church icons of her youth, was hugely successful. And when she set out to create a perfume, she knew it would have to be totally unique. Chanel No. 5 combined eighty flower essences, resulting in a fresh, youthful scent that lasted longer than other perfumes. Coco even made the bottle revolutionary; instead of the romantic, curvy bottles most perfumes came in, Coco created a strong, square, androgynous bottle with only her name and a mysterious number. People were intrigued. Soon Chanel No. 5 was the most popular perfume in the world.
The very nature of fashion is that what’s in today is out tomorrow. But Coco was never out for long. Her style is so timeless that she was the height of fashion at the turn of the century and in the 1930s, then again in the 1950s. Even in the 1980s, after her death, Coco’s style rose from the grave. Today, her look is still the epitome of elegant, understated style.
A poor orphan, with no class or connections, Coco made herself into a millionaire and founded the very first fashion empire. She created the movement toward functional, comfortable, and practical clothing for women, which has been copied by the likes of Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger. Coco was the original. She freed women from the weight of fashion, allowing them to look beautiful and stylish in clothing that let them lead an active lifestyle. Coco’s clothes were adored by women as varied as Princess Grace, Marilyn Monroe, and Jackie Kennedy, and her timeless style has defined women’s fashion for almost a century.