Born
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Died
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10 January 1971 (aged 87)
Paris, France
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Nationality
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French
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Occupation
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Fashion designer
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Parents
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Eugénie "Jeanne"
Devolle
Albert Chanel |
Awards
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Labels
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Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971)[1] was a French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel brand. She is the only fashion designer listed on
Time
magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th
century.[2] Along with Paul Poiret, Chanel was credited with
liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularizing the
acceptance of a sportive, casual chic as the feminine standard in the post-World War I era. A prolific fashion
creator, Chanel's influence extended beyond couture clothing. Her design
aesthetic was realized in jewelry, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature
scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product.
Chanel was known for her lifelong determination, ambition, and energy which
she applied to her professional and social life. She achieved both success as a
businesswoman and social prominence thanks to the connections she made through
her work. These included many artists and craftspeople to whom she became a
patron. However, Chanel's highly competitive, opportunistic personality led her
to make questionable life choices which have generated controversy around her
reputation, particularly her behaviour during the German occupation
of France in World War II.
Contents
- 1 Early life
- 2 Personal life and early career
- 3 Established couturière
- 3.1 Associations with British aristocrats
- 3.2 Designing for film
- 3.3 Significant liaisons: Reverdy and Iribe
- 3.4 Rivalry with Schiaparelli
- 4 World War II
- 5 Post-war life and career
- 6 Last years
- 7 Death
- 8 Legacy as designer
- 8.1 Ethnic influence
- 8.2 The Chanel Suit
- 8.3 The "little black dress"
- 8.4 Jewelery
- 8.5 The Chanel bag
- 8.6 Suntans
- 9 In popular culture
- 10 References
- 11 External links
Early life
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born to an unwed
mother, Eugénie "Jeanne" Devolle, a laundrywoman, in "the charity hospital
run by the Sisters of Providence"[3] in Saumur, France. She was
Devolle's second daughter. Her father, Albert Chanel, was an itinerant street
vendor who peddled work clothes and undergarments,[4] living a nomadic life, traveling
to and from market towns, while the family resided in rundown lodgings. In
1884, he married Jeanne Devolle,[5] persuaded to do so by her family
who had "united, effectively, to pay Albert to marry her."[6] 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
"travelling".[3] With both parents absent, the
infant's last name was misspelled, probably due to a clerical error. The couple
eventually had five other children: Julia-Berthe (1882–1912), Antoinette (born
1887), and the three sons, Alphonse (1885-1953), Lucien (born 1889), and
Augustin, who died in infancy.
In 1895, when Gabrielle was twelve years old, her mother died of bronchitis[7] at age thirty-one.[7] Gabrielle's father sent his two
sons out to work as farm laborers and sent his three daughters to the Corrèze, in central France, to the convent
of Aubazine, whose 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".[8] It was a stark, frugal life,
demanding strict discipline. At age eighteen, Chanel, too old to remain at
Aubazine, went to live in a boarding house set aside for Catholic girls in the
town of Moulins.[9]
Later in life, Chanel fabricated her history, concocting elaborate fictions
in order to obscure her humble origins. Of the various stories told about Coco
Chanel, a great number were of her own invention. These legends were to prove
the undoing of her earliest biographies. These were ghosted memoirs
commissioned by Chanel herself, but never published, always aborted before
fruition, as she realized that the facts exposed a personage less laudable than
the mythic Chanel she had invented. Chanel would steadfastly claim that when
her mother died, her father sailed for America to seek his fortune and she was
sent to live with two cold-hearted aunts. She even claimed to have been born in
1893 instead of 1883 and that her mother had died when Coco was two instead of
twelve.[10]
Personal life and early career
Chanel, early professional years
Aspirations for a stage career
Having learned the art of sewing during her six years at Aubazine, Chanel
was able to find employment as a seamstress. When not plying her needle, she
sang in a cabaret frequented by cavalry officers. Chanel made her stage debut
singing at a café-concert
(a popular entertainment venue of the era) in a Moulins pavilion, "La Rotonde".
She was among other girls dubbed poseuses, the performers who
entertained the crowd between star turns. The money earned was what they
managed to accumulate when the plate was passed among the audience in
appreciation of their performance. It was at this time that Gabrielle acquired
the name "Coco", possibly based on two popular songs with which she
became identified, "Ko Ko Ri Ko", and "Qui qu'a vu Coco",
or it was an allusion to the French word for kept woman, cocotte.[11] As cafe entertainer, Chanel
radiated a juvenile allure that tantalized the military habitués of the
cabaret.[9]
The year 1906 found Chanel in the spa resort town of Vichy.
Vichy boasted a profusion of concert halls, theatres and cafes where Chanel
hoped to find success as a performer. Chanel's youth and physical charms
impressed those for whom she auditioned, but her singing voice was marginal and
she failed to find stage work.[12] Obliged to find employment, she
took work at the "Grande Grille", where as a donneuse d'eau she
was one of the females whose job it was to dispense glasses of the purportedly
curative mineral water for which Vichy was renowned.[13] When the Vichy season ended,
Chanel returned to Moulins, and
her former haunt "La Rotonde". She now realized that a serious stage
career was not in her future.[14]
First patrons
Balsan and Capel
Chanel and Arthur "Boy" Capel, caricature by Sem, 1913.
Gabrielle Dorziat modelling a Chanel hat, May 1912. Published in Les
Modes.
It was at Moulins that Chanel met the young French ex-cavalry officer and
the wealthy textile heir Étienne Balsan. At the age twenty-three,
Chanel became Balsan's mistress, supplanting the courtesan Émilienne d'Alençon as his new
favorite.[15] For the next three years, she
lived with him in his chateau Royallieu near Compiègne, an area known for its
wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life.[16] It was a life style of
self-indulgence, Balsan's wealth and leisure allowing the cultivation of a
social who reveled in partying and the gratification of human appetites with
all the implied accompanying decadence. Balsan lavished Chanel with the
beauties of "the rich life"—diamonds, dresses, and pearls. Biographer
Justine Picardie, in her 2010 study Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life
(Harper Collins), suggests that the fashion designer's nephew, André Palasse,
supposedly the only child of her sister Julia-Berthe who had committed suicide,
was actually Chanel's child by Balsan.
In 1908 Chanel began an affair with one of Balsan's friends, Captain Arthur Edward 'Boy' Capel.[17] In later years, Chanel
reminisced of this time in her life: "two gentlemen were outbidding for my
hot little body."[18] Capel, a wealthy member of the English upper class,
installed Chanel in an apartment in Paris.[19] and financed Chanel's first
shops. It is said that Capel's own sartorial style influenced the conception of
the Chanel look. The bottle design for Chanel No. 5 had two probable origins, both
attributable to the sophisticated design sensibilities of Capel. It is believed
Chanel adapted the rectangular, beveled lines of the Charvet
toiletry bottles he carried in his leather traveling case[20] or it was the design of the
whiskey decanter Capel used and Chanel so admired that she wished to reproduce
it in "exquisite, expensive, delicate glass".[21] The couple spent time together
at fashionable resorts such as Deauville, but he was
never faithful to Chanel.[22] The affair lasted nine years,
but even after Capel married an English aristocrat, Lady Diana Wyndham in 1918,
he did not completely break off with Chanel. His death in a car accident, in
late 1919, was the single most devastating event in Chanel's life.[23] She commissioned the placement
of a roadside memorial at the site of the accident, which she visited in later
years to lay flowers in remembrance.[24] Twenty-five years after the
event, Chanel then residing in Switzerland, confided to her friend Paul Morand:
"His death was a terrible blow to me. In losing Capel, I lost everything.
What followed was not a life of happiness, I have to say." [25]
Chanel began designing hats while living with Balsan, initially as a
diversion that evolved into a commercial enterprise. She became a licensed
milliner (hat maker) in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris
named Chanel Modes.[26] As this location already housed
an established clothing business, Chanel sold only her millinery creations at
this address. Chanel's millinery career bloomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorziat modelled her hats in the
F Noziere's play Bel Ami in 1912. Subsequently, Dorziat modelled her
hats again in Les Modes.[26]
Deauville and Biarritz
Three jersey outfits by Chanel for March 1917
In 1913, Chanel opened a boutique in Deauville financed by Arthur Capel where
she introduced deluxe casual clothes suitable for leisure and sport. The
fashions were constructed from humble fabrics such as jersey and tricot,
primarily used for men's underwear.[26] The location was a prime one, in
the center of town on a fashionable street. Here Chanel sold hats, jackets,
sweaters, and the marinière, the sailor blouse. Chanel had the dedicated
support of two family members. One was her sister, Antoinette. The other was
Adrienne Chanel, a woman close to Chanel's own age, yet, remarkably her aunt;
the child of a union her grandfather had had late in his life.[27] Adrienne and Antoinette were
recruited to model her designs; on a daily basis the two women paraded through
the town and on its boardwalks, advertising the Chanel creations.[28]
Chanel, determined to re-create the success she had enjoyed in Deauville,
opened an establishment in Biarritz in 1915.
Biarritz, situated on the Côte Basque, in proximity to wealthy Spanish clients,
had the status of neutrality during World War I, allowing it to become the
playground for the moneyed and those exiled from their native countries by the
hostilities.[29] The Biarritz shop was installed
not as a storefront, but in a villa opposite the casino. After only one year of
operation, the business proved to be so lucrative that in 1916 Chanel was able
to reimburse Capel his original investment—a decision Chanel made on her own,
without Capel's input.[30] It was in Biarritz that Chanel made
the acquaintance of an expatriate aristocrat, the Grand
Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia. They had a romantic interlude, and
maintained a close association for many years afterward.[31] By 1919, Chanel was registered
as a couturiere and established her maison de couture at 31 rue Cambon.[26]
Established couturière
In 1918, Chanel was able to acquire the entire building at 31 rue Cambon
situated in one of the most fashionable districts of Paris. In 1921, she opened
what may be considered an early incarnation of the fashion boutique, featuring clothing, hats, and
accessories later expanded to offer jewelry and fragrance. By 1927, Chanel
owned an expanse of five properties on the rue Cambon, encompassing buildings
numbered 23 through 31.[32]
In the spring of 1920 (approximately May), Chanel was introduced to the
composer Igor Stravinsky
by Sergei Diaghilev,
impresario of the Ballets Russes.[33] During the summer, Chanel
discovered that the Stravinsky family was seeking a place to live. She invited
them to her new home, "Bel Respiro," in the Paris suburb of Garches
until they could find a more suitable residence.[33] They arrived at "Bel
Respiro" during the second week of September[33] and remained until May 1921.[34] Chanel also guaranteed the new
(1920) Ballets Russes production of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du
Printemps (The Rite of Spring) against financial loss
with an anonymous gift to Diaghilev, said to be 300,000 francs.[35]
In 1922, at the Longchamps
races, Théophile Bader,
founder of the Paris Galeries Lafayette,
introduced Chanel to businessman Pierre Wertheimer. Bader was interested in
inaugurating the sale of the Chanel No. 5 fragrance in his department store.[36] In 1924, Chanel made an
agreement with the Wertheimer brothers, Pierre and Paul, directors of the
eminent perfume and cosmetics house Bourgeois since 1917, creating a corporate entity,
"Parfums Chanel." The Wertheimers agreed to provide full financing
for production, marketing and distribution of Chanel No. 5. The Wertheimers would receive
seventy percent of the profits, and Théophile Bader a twenty percent share. For
ten percent of the stock, Chanel licensed her name to Parfums Chanel and
removed herself from involvement in all business operations.[37] Displeased with the arrangement,
Chanel worked for more than twenty years to gain full control of Parfums
Chanel.[36][37] She proclaimed that Pierre
Wertheimer was "the bandit who screwed me".[38]
One of Chanel's longest and enduring associations was with Misia Sert, a notable member of the
Parisian, bohemian elite and wife of Spanish painter José-Maria Sert. It is said that theirs was
an immediate bond of like souls, and Misia was attracted to Chanel by "her
genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and
appalled everyone".[39] Both women, convent bred,
maintained a friendship of shared interests, confidences and drug use. By 1935,
Chanel had become a habitual drug user, injecting herself with morphine on a daily basis until the end of
her life.[40] According to Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent,
Luca Turin related an apocryphal story in
circulation that Chanel was "called Coco because she threw the most
fabulous cocaine parties in Paris".[41]
The writer Colette, who moved in the same social
circles as Chanel, provided a whimsical description of Chanel at work in her
atelier, which appeared in "Prisons et Paradis" (1932). "If
every human face bears a resemblance to some animal, then Mademoiselle Chanel
is a small black bull. That tuft of curly black hair, the attribute of
bull-calves, falls over her brow all the way to the eyelids and dances with
every maneuver of her head."[42]
Associations with British aristocrats
In 1923, Vera Bate Lombardi,
(born Sarah Gertrude Arkwright),[43] reputedly the illegitimate
daughter of the Marquess
of Cambridge,[43] afforded Chanel entry into the
highest levels of British aristocracy. It was an elite group of associations
revolving around such personages as Winston Churchill, aristocrats such as the
Duke of Westminster, and royals such as Edward, Prince of Wales. It was in Monte
Carlo in 1923, at age forty that Chanel was introduced by Lombardi to the
vastly wealthy Duke
of Westminster, Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, known to his
intimates as "Bendor". The Duke of Westminster lavished Chanel with
extravagant jewels, costly art, and a home in London's prestigious Mayfair district. His affair with Chanel
lasted ten years.[44]
The Duke, an outspoken anti-Semite, intensified Chanel's inherent antipathy
toward Jews and shared with her an expressed homophobia. In 1946, Chanel was quoted by
her friend and confidante, Paul Morand:
"Homosexuals? … I have seen young women ruined by these awful queers:
drugs, divorce, scandal. They will use any means to destroy a competitor and to
wreak vengeance on a woman. The queers want to be women—but they are lousy
women. They are charming!"[45]
Coinciding with her introduction to the Duke, was her introduction, again
through Lombardi, to Lombardi's cousin, the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII. The
Prince allegedly became smitten with Chanel and pursued her in spite of her involvement
with the Duke of Westminster. Gossip had it that he visited Chanel in her
apartment and requested that she call him "David", a privilege
reserved only for his closest friends and family. Years later, Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue,
would insist that "the passionate, focused and fiercely independent
Chanel, a virtual tour de force," and the Prince "had a great
romantic moment together".[46]
In 1927, the Duke of Westminster gave Chanel a parcel of land he had
purchased in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
on the French Riviera. It was on this site that Chanel built her villa, La Pausa[47] ("restful pause"), hiring the architect Robert
Streitz. Streitz's concept for the staircase and patio contained design
elements inspired by Aubazine, the
orphanage in which Chanel spent her youth.[48][49] When asked why she did not marry
the Duke of Westminster, she is supposed to have stated: "There have been
several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel."[50]
Designing for film
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov in exile in the 1920s.
It was in 1931 while in Monte Carlo that
Chanel made the acquaintance of Samuel Goldwyn. The introduction was made
through a mutual friend, the Grand
Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, cousin to the last czar of Russia, Nicolas
II. Goldwyn offered Chanel a tantalizing proposition. For the sum of a million
dollars (approximately seventy-five million in twenty-first century valuation),
he would bring her to Hollywood twice a year to design costumes for MGM
stars. Chanel accepted the offer. Accompanying her on her first trip to
Hollywood would be her friend Misia Sert.
En route to California from New York traveling in a white train car, which
had been luxuriously outfitted specifically for her use, she was interviewed by
Colliers magazine in 1932. Chanel said she had agreed to the arrangement
to "see what the pictures have to offer me and what I have to offer the
pictures."[51] Chanel designed the clothing
worn on screen by Gloria Swanson,
in "Tonight or Never" (1931), and for Ina Claire in "The Greeks Had A Word
for Them" (1932). Both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich became private clients.[52]
Her experience with American movie making left Chanel with a dislike for
the Hollywood film business and distaste for the Hollywood culture itself,
which she denounced as "infantile".[53] Chanel's verdict was that
"Hollywood is the capital of bad taste … and it is vulgar."[54] Ultimately, her design aesthetic
did not translate well to film. The New Yorker speculated that Chanel
had left Hollywood because "they told her her dresses weren't sensational
enough. She made a lady look like a lady. Hollywood wants a lady to look like
two ladies."[55] Chanel went on to design the
costumes for several French films, including Jean Renoir's 1939 film La Règle du jeu,
in which she was credited as La Maison Chanel. Chanel introduced the left-wing
Renoir to Luchino Visconti,
aware that the shy Italian hoped to work in film. Renoir was favorably
impressed by Visconti and brought him in to work on his next film project.[56]
Significant liaisons: Reverdy and Iribe
Chanel was the mistress of some of the most influential men of her time,
but she never married. She had significant relationships with the poet Pierre Reverdy and the illustrator and
designer Paul Iribe. After her romance with Reverdy
ended in 1926, they still maintained a friendship that lasted some forty years.[57] It is postulated that the
legendary maxims attributed to Chanel and published in periodicals were crafted
under the mentorship of Reverdy — a collaborative effort. "A review of her
correspondence reveals a complete contradiction between the clumsiness of
Chanel the letter writer and the talent of Chanel as a composer of maxims …
After correcting the handful of aphorisms that Chanel wrote about her métier,
Reverdy added to this collection of “Chanelisms” a series of thoughts of a more
general nature, some touching on life and taste, others on allure and
love."[58] Her involvement with Iribe was a
deep one until his sudden death in 1935. Iribe and Chanel shared the same
reactionary politics, Chanel financing Iribe's monthly, ultra-nationalist and
anti-republican newsletter, Le Témoin, which fueled an irrational fear
of foreigners and preached anti-Semitism.[59][60] In 1936, one year after Le
Témoin stopped publication, Chanel veered to the opposite end of the
ideological continuum by financing Pierre Lestringuez's radical left-wing
magazine Futur.[61]
Rivalry with Schiaparelli
The Chanel couture was a lucrative business enterprise, by 1935 employing
four thousand people.[52] As the 1930s progressed,
Chanel's place on the throne of haute couture came under threat. The boyish
look and the short skirts of the 1920s flapper seemed to disappear overnight.
Chanel's designs for film stars in Hollywood had met with failure and had not
aggrandized her reputation as expected. More significantly, Chanel's star had
been eclipsed by her premier rival, the designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Schiaparelli's
innovative design, replete with playful references to Surrealism was garnering critical acclaim
and generating enthusiasm in the fashion world. Feeling she was losing her
avant-garde edge, Chanel proceeded to collaborate with Jean Cocteau on his theatre piece Oedipe
Rex. The costumes she designed were mocked and critically lambasted:
"Wrapped in bandages the actors looked like ambulant mummies or victims of
some terrible accident."[62]
World War II
In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Chanel closed her shops,
maintaining her apartment situated above the couture house at 31 Rue de Cambon.
She claimed that it was not a time for fashion.[29] and 3,000 female employees lost
their jobs.[63] The advent of war had given
Chanel the opportunity to retaliate against those workers who, lobbying for
fair wages and work hours, had closed her business operation during a general
labor strike in France in 1936. In closing her couture house, Chanel made a
definitive statement of her political views. Her dislike of Jews, reportedly
inculcated by her convent years and sharpened by her association with society
elites, had solidified her beliefs. She shared with most of her circle the
conviction that Jews were a Bolshevik threat to
Europe.[63] During the German occupation Chanel resided at the Hotel Ritz,
which was also noteworthy for being the preferred place of residence for upper
echelon German military staff. Her romantic liaison with Hans Gunther von
Dincklage, a German officer who had been an operative in military intelligence
since 1920,[64] facilitated her arrangement to
reside at the Ritz.[65]
Battle for control of Parfums Chanel
World War II, specifically the Nazi seizure of all Jewish-owned property
and business enterprises, provided Chanel with the opportunity to gain the full
monetary fortune generated by Parfums Chanel and its most profitable
product, Chanel No. 5. The directors of Parfums Chanel, the Wertheimers,
were Jewish, and Chanel used her position as an "Aryan"
to petition German officials to legalize her claim to sole ownership.
On 5 May 1941, she wrote to the government administrator charged with
ruling on the disposition of Jewish financial assets. Her grounds for
proprietary ownership were based on the claim that Parfums Chanel
"is still the property of Jews" and had been legally
"abandoned" by the owners.[66][67]
"I have," she wrote, "an indisputable right of priority …
the profits that I have received from my creations since the foundation of this
business … are disproportionate … [and] you can help to repair in part the
prejudices I have suffered in the course of these seventeen years."[68]
Chanel was not aware that the Wertheimers, anticipating the forthcoming
Nazi mandates against Jews had, in May 1940, legally turned control of Parfums
Chanel over to a Christian, French businessman and industrialist Felix Amiot. At war's end, Amiot turned
"Parfums Chanel" back into the hands of the Wertheimers.[66][67]
During the period directly following the end of World War II, the business
world watched with interest and some apprehension the ongoing legal wrestle for
control of Parfums Chanel. Interested parties in the proceedings were
cognizant that Chanel's Nazi affiliations during wartime, if made public
knowledge, would seriously threaten the reputation and status of the Chanel
brand. Forbes magazine summarized the dilemma
faced by the Wertheimers: [it is Pierre Wertheimer's worry] how "a legal
fight might illuminate Chanel's wartime activities and wreck her image—and his
business."[69]
Ultimately, the Wertheimers and Chanel came to a mutual accommodation,
renegotiating the original 1924 contract. On 17 May 1947, Chanel received
wartime profits from the sale of Chanel No. 5, in an amount equivalent to some
nine million dollars in twenty-first century valuation. Further, her future
share would be two percent of all Chanel No. 5 sales worldwide. The financial
benefit to her would be enormous. Her earnings would be in the vicinity of
twenty-five million dollars a year, making her at the time one of the richest
women in the world. In addition, Pierre Wertheimer agreed to an unusual
stipulation proposed by Chanel herself. Wertheimer agreed to pay all of
Chanel's living expenses—from the trivial to the large — for the rest of her
life.[70][71]
Activity as Nazi agent
General Walter Schellenberg Chief of SS intelligence, the Sicherheitsdienst.
Declassified, archival documents unearthed by Hal Vaughan reveal that the French
Préfecture de Police had a document on Chanel in which she was described as
"Couturier and perfumer. Pseudonym: Westminster. Agent reference: F 7124.
Signalled as suspect in the file" (Pseudonyme: Westminster. Indicatif
d'agent: F 7124. Signalée comme suspecte au fichier).[72][73] For Vaughan, this was a piece of
revelatory information linking Chanel to German intelligence operations.
Anti-Nazi activist Serge Klarsfeld
thus declared that "It is not because Chanel had a spy number that she was
necessarily personally implicated. Some informers had numbers without being
aware of it." ("Ce n'est pas parce Coco Chanel avait un numéro
d'espion qu'elle était nécessairement impliquée personnellement. Certains
indicateurs avaient des numéros sans le savoir").[74]
Vaughan establishes that Chanel committed herself to the German cause as
early as 1941 and worked for General Walter Schellenberg,
chief of SS intelligence.[75] At the end of the war,
Schellenberg was tried by the Nuremberg
Military Tribunal, and sentenced to six years imprisonment for war
crimes. He was released in 1951 owing to incurable liver disease and took
refuge in Italy. Chanel paid for Schellenberg's medical care and living
expenses, financially supported his wife and family and paid for Schellenberg's
funeral upon his death in 1952.[76]
Operation Modellhut
In 1943, Chanel traveled to Berlin with Dinklage to meet with SS
Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler
to formulate strategy.[75] In late 1943 or early 1944,
Chanel and her SS master, Schellenberg, devised a plan to press Britain to end
hostilities with Germany. When interrogated by British intelligence at war's
end, Schellenberg maintained that Chanel was "a person who knew Churchill
sufficiently to undertake political negotiations with him".[77] For this mission, named Operation
Modellhut ("Model Hat"), they recruited Vera Bate Lombardi.
Count Joseph von Ledebur-Wicheln, a Nazi agent who defected to the British
Secret Service in 1944, recalled a meeting he had with Dinklage in early 1943.
Dinklage proposed an inducement that would tantalize Chanel. He informed von
Ledebur that Chanel's participation in the operation would be ensured if
Lombardi was included: "The Abwehr had first to bring to France a young
Italian woman [Lombardi] Coco Chanel was attached to because of her lesbian
vices…"[78] Unaware of the machinations of
Schellenberg and her old friend Chanel, Lombardi played the part of their
unwitting dupe, led to believe that the forthcoming journey to Spain would be a
business trip exploring the possibilities of establishing the Chanel couture in
Madrid. Lombardi's role was to act as intermediary, delivering a letter penned
by Chanel to Winston Churchill, and forwarded to him via the British embassy in
Madrid.[79] Schellenberg's SS liaison
officer, Captain Walter Kutchmann, acted as bagman, "told to deliver a
large sum of money to Chanel in Madrid".[80] Ultimately, the mission proved a
failure. British intelligence files reveal that all collapsed, as Lombardi, on
arrival, proceeded to denounce Chanel and others as Nazi spies.[81]
Protection from prosecution
In September 1944, Chanel was called in to be interrogated by the Free
French Purge Committee, the épuration. The committee, which had no
documented evidence of her collaboration activity, was obliged to release her.
According to Chanel's grand-niece, Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, when Chanel
returned home she said, "Churchill had me freed".[82]
A previously unpublished interview exists dating from September, 1944 when Malcolm Muggeridge,
then an intelligence agent with the British MI6,
interviewed Chanel after her appearance before the Free French investigators.
Muggeridge pointedly questions Chanel about her allegiances and wartime
activities. As to her feelings of being the subject of a recent investigation
of collaborators, Chanel had this to say of her interrogators: "It is odd
how my feelings have evolved. At first, their conduct incensed me. Now, I feel
almost sorry for those ruffians. One should refrain from contempt for the baser
specimens of humanity…"[83]
The extent of Winston Churchill's intervention became a subject of gossipy
speculation. It was supposedly feared that if Chanel were ever made to testify
at trial, the pro-Nazi sympathies and activities of top-level British
officials, members of the society elite and those of the royal family itself
would be exposed. Some claim that Churchill instructed Duff Cooper, British ambassador to the
French provisional government, to protect Chanel.[84]
Finally induced to appear in Paris before investigators in 1949, Chanel
left her retreat in Switzerland to confront testimony given against her at the
war crime trial of Baron Louis de Vaufreland, a French traitor and highly
placed German intelligence agent. Chanel denied all accusations brought against
her. She offered the presiding judge, Leclercq, a character reference: "I
could arrange for a declaration to come from Mr. Duff Cooper."[85]
Chanel's friend and biographer Marcel Haedrich provided a telling
estimation of her wartime interaction with the Nazi regime: "If one took
seriously the few disclosures that Mademoiselle Chanel allowed herself to make
about those black years of the occupation, one's teeth would be set on
edge."[86]
Controversy
Vaughan's disclosure of the contents of recently de-classified military
intelligence documents, and the subsequent controversy generated soon after the
book's publication in August 2011, prompted The House of Chanel to issue a statement, portions of
which appeared in myriad media outlets. Chanel corporate "refuted the
claim" (of espionage), while admitting that company officials had read
only media excerpts of the book."[87]
"What's certain is that she had a relationship with a German
aristocrat during the War. Clearly it wasn't the best period to have a love
story with a German even if Baron von Dincklage was English by his mother and
she (Chanel) knew him before the War," the Chanel group said in a
statement.[88] "The fashion house also
disputed that the designer was anti-Semitic, saying Chanel would not have had
Jewish friends or ties with the Rothschild family of financiers if she
were."[89]
In an interview given to the Associated Press, author Vaughan explains the
trajectory of his research. "I was looking for something else and I come
across this document saying 'Chanel is a Nazi agent…Then I really started
hunting through all of the archives, in the United States, in London, in Berlin
and in Rome and I come across not one, but 20, 30, 40 absolutely solid archival
materials on Chanel and her lover, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who was a
professional Abwehr spy."[90] Vaughan also addressed the
discomfort many felt with the revelations provided in his book: "A lot of
people in this world don't want the iconic figure of Gabrielle Coco Chanel, one
of France's great cultural idols, destroyed. This is definitely something that
a lot of people would have preferred to put aside, to forget, to just go on selling
Chanel scarves and jewelry."[87]
Post-war life and career
In 1945, Chanel moved to Switzerland,
eventually returning to Paris in 1954. In 1953 she sold her villa La Pausa on the French Riviera to Emery
Reves. La Pausa has been partially replicated at the Dallas Museum of
Art, and contains pieces of furniture original to the villa and
houses the Reves collection of art.[49]
Unlike the pre-war era, when women reigned as the premier couturiers, the
success of Christian Dior's "New Look"
in 1947 brought to prominence a cadre of male designers—Christian Dior, Cristóbal
Balenciaga, Robert Piguet, Jacques Fath. Chanel was convinced that
women would ultimately rebel against the aesthetic favored by the male
couturiers, what she called "illogical" design—the "waist
cinchers, padded bras, heavy skirts, and stiffened jackets". Now over
seventy years old, after a fifteen-year absence, she felt the time was right
for her to re-enter the fashion world.[91] The re-establishment of her
couture house in 1954 was fully financed by Chanel's old nemesis in the perfume
battle, Pierre Wertheimer.[92] Her new collection was not
received well by Parisians who felt her reputation had been tainted by her
wartime association with the Nazis. However, her return to couture was
applauded by the British and Americans, who became her faithful customers.[93]
Last years
According to Edmonde Charles-Roux [94] Chanel had become tyrannic, and
extremely lonely. In her last years she was sometimes accompanied by Jacques Chazot and her confident Lilou
Marquand. A faithful friend was also the Brazilian Aimée de Heeren that lived in Paris four
months a year at the nearby Hotel Meurice.
The former rivals shared happy souvenirs of times with the Duke
of Westminster and they used to walk together around central Paris.[95]
Death
As 1971 began, Chanel was 87 years old, tired, and ailing, but nonetheless
stuck to her usual routine of preparing the spring catalog. She had gone for a
long drive the afternoon of Saturday January 9 and feeling ill went to bed
early.[96] She died on Sunday, January 10,
1971 at the Hotel Ritz where she had resided for more than 30 years.[97] Her funeral was held at the
eglise de la Madeleine,
her fashion models occupied the first seats during the ceremony, her coffin was
covered with white flowers - camellias, gardenias, orchids, azaleas and a few
red roses.
Her grave is located in the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, Lausanne, Switzerland.[98]
Legacy as designer
As early as 1915, Harper's Bazaar raved over Chanel's
designs: "The woman who hasn't at least one Chanel is hopelessly out of
fashion … This season the name Chanel is on the lips of every buyer."[99] Chanel's ascendancy was the
official deathblow to the corseted female silhouette. The frills, fuss, and
constraints endured by earlier generations of women were now passé; under her
influence—gone were the "aigrettes, long hair, hobble skirts".[100] Her design aesthetic redefined
the fashionable woman for the post WWI era. The Chanel trademark was a look of
youthful ease, a liberated physicality, and unencumbered sportive confidence.
Chanel's philosophy was to emphasize understated elegance through her
clothing. Her popularity thrived in the 1920s, because of innovative designs.
Chanel's own look itself was as different and new as her creations. Instead of
the usual pale-skinned, long-haired and full-bodied women preferred at the
time, Chanel had a boyish figure, short cropped hair, and tanned skin. She had
a distinct type of beauty that the world came to embrace.
The horse culture and penchant for hunting so passionately pursued by the
elites, especially the British, fired Chanel's imagination. Her own
enthusiastic indulgence in the sporting life led to clothing designs informed
by those activities. From her excursions on water with the yachting world, she
appropriated the clothing associated with nautical pursuits: the horizontal
striped shirt, bell-bottom pants, crewneck sweaters, and espadrille shoes—all
traditionally worn by sailors and fishermen.[101]
Ethnic influence
Designers such as Paul Poiret and Fortuny
introduced ethnic references into haute couture in the 1900s and early 1910s.[102] Chanel continued this trend
with Slav-inspired designs in the early 1920s.
The beading and embroidery on her garments at this time was exclusively
executed by Kitmir,
an embroidery house founded by an exiled Russian aristocrat, the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the sister of
her erstwhile lover, Grand
Duke Dmitri Pavlovich.[103][104] Kitmir's fusion of oriental
stitching with stylised folk motifs was highlighted in Chanel's early
collections.[104] One 1922 evening dress came
with a matching embroidered 'babushka' headscarf.[104] In addition to the headscarf,
Chanel clothing from this period featured square-neck, long belted blouses
alluding to Russian muzhiks (peasant) attire known as the roubachka.[105] Evening designs were often
embroidered with sparkling crystal and black jet embroidery.[106]
The Chanel Suit
Her initial triumph was the innovative use of jersey fabric, a machine knit
material manufactured for her by the firm Rodier,[107] and traditionally relegated to the manufacture of
undergarments. Her wool jersey traveling suit consisted of a cardigan jacket,
and pleated skirt, paired with a low-belted pullover top. This ensemble, worn
with low-heeled shoes, became the casual look in expensive women's wear.[108]
The camellia
The camellia had an established association
with Alexandre Dumas's
literary work, "La Dame aux Camélias" (''The Lady of
the Camellias"). Its heroine and her story had resonated
for Chanel since her youth. The flower itself had become identified with the courtesan who would wear a camellia to
advertise her availability.[109] The camellia came to be
identified with The House of Chanel, making its first appearance as a
decorative element on a white-trimmed black suit in 1933.[52]
The "little black dress"
The concept of the "little black dress"
is often cited as a Chanel contribution to the fashion lexicon and as an
article of clothing survives to this day. Its first incarnation was executed in
thin silk, crèpe de chine, and had long sleeves.[110] In 1926, the American edition
of Vogue
highlighted such a Chanel dress, dubbing it the garçonne (little boy
look).[52] Vogue editors predicted it would
"become sort of a uniform for all women of taste", embodying a
standardized aesthetic, which the magazine likened to the democratic appeal of
the ubiquitous black Ford automobile. This look, a spare sheath, generated
widespread criticism from male journalists who complained: "no more bosom,
no more stomach, no more rump…Feminine fashion of this moment in the 20th
century will be baptized lop off everything."[111]
Jewelery
In 1933, designer Paul Iribe collaborated with Chanel in the creation of
extravagant jewellery pieces commissioned by the International Guild of Diamond
Merchants. The collection, executed exclusively in diamonds and platinum, was
exhibited for public viewing and drew a large audience; some three thousand
attendees were recorded in a one-month period.[52]
As an antidote for vrais bijoux en toc, the obsession with costly,
fine jewels,[52] Chanel turned unenviable costume
jewelry into a coveted accessory—especially when worn in excess displays, as
did Chanel herself. Originally inspired by the opulent, costly jewels and
pearls gifted to her by her aristocratic lovers, Chanel raided her own jewel
vault and partnered with Duke Fulco di Verdura
to launch a House of Chanel jewelry line. A white enameled cuff featuring a
jeweled Maltese cross
was Chanel's personal favourite and has become an iconic piece representative
of the Verdura Chanel collaboration.[52] The fashionable and wealthy
loved the creations and made it wildly successful. Ever the oracle for the
modern, society elite, Chanel put forth her own disingenuous PR statement
delivered in the inevitable dictatorial manner: "It's disgusting to walk
around with millions around the neck because one happens to be rich. I only
like fake jewellery … because it's provocative."[112]
The Chanel bag
Identifying a need to liberate women's hands from the encumbrance of a hand
held bag, Chanel conceived of a handbag that would accomplish this stylishly.
Christened the "2.55" (named
after the date of the bag's creation: February 1955), its design, as with much
of her creative inspiration, was informed by her convent days and her love of
the sporting world.
The original version was constructed of jersey or leather, the outside
featuring a hand-stitched quilted design influenced by the jackets worn by
jockeys. The chain strap was a nod to her orphanage years, reminiscent to
Chanel of the abbey caretakers who wore such waist chains to hold keys. The
burgundy red uniform worn by the convent girls was transmuted into the bag's
interior lining.
The bag design went through a reincarnation in the 1980s when it was
updated by Karl Lagerfeld.
Known as the Reissue, the bag retained its original classic shape, with
the clasp and chain strap differing from its initial form. Lagerfeld worked the
House of Chanel logo, "CC" into the rectangular twist lock and wove
leather through the shoulder chain.[113]
Suntans
In an outdoor environment of turf and sea, Chanel took in the sun, making
suntans not only acceptable, but a symbol denoting a life of privilege and
leisure. Historically, identifiable exposure to the sun had been the mark of
those unfortunate laborers doomed to a life of unremitting, unsheltered toil.
"A milky skin seemed a sure sign of aristocracy." By the mid-1920s,
women could be seen lounging on the beach without a hat to shield them from the
sun's rays. The Chanel influence made sun bathing fashionable.[114]
In popular culture
Film depictions
The first film about Chanel was Chanel Solitaire (1981), directed by George Kaczender and starring Marie-France Pisier,
Timothy Dalton, and Rutger Hauer.
The American television movie Coco Chanel
debuted on 13 September 2008 on Lifetime Television,
starring Shirley MacLaine
as a 70-year-old Chanel. Directed by Christian
Duguay, the film also starred Barbora Bobulova as the young Chanel, Olivier Sitruk as Boy Capel, and Malcolm McDowell. The movie substantially
rewrote Chanel's personal history, such as its portrayal of her status as a
professional mistress as instead a series of "love stories", and
glossing over both her Nazi collaboration and her use of British royal
connections to avoid post-war trial as a collaborator.
A film starring Audrey Tautou
as the young Coco, titled Coco avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel),
was released on 22 April 2009. Audrey Tautou is the new spokeswoman of Chanel
S.A.
The film Coco
Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, directed by Jan Kounen and starring Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen, concerns the purported
affair between Chanel and Igor Stravinsky.
The film is based on the 2002 novel Coco & Igor by Chris Greenhalgh, and was chosen to close
the Cannes Film Festival of 2009.[115] Two more projects are said to
be in the works, including one directed by Daniele Thompson.[116]
Literary depictions
Coco & Igor is a novel, written by Chris Greenhalgh, which depicts the affair
between Chanel and Igor Stravinsky
and the creative achievements that this affair inspired. The novel was first
published in 2003.
In 2008, a children's book entitled Different like Coco was published.
It depicted the humble childhood of Coco Chanel and chronicled how she made
drastic changes to the fashion industry.
Chanel boutique on Rodeo Drive
(Beverly Hills)
The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons
from the World's Most Elegant Woman is a novel written by Karen Karbo.
Published in 2009, it chronicles the humble beginnings and legendary
achievements of Coco Chanel while providing insight and advice on everything from
embracing the moment to living life on your own terms.
Stage depictions
The Broadway musical Coco, music by André Previn, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, opened 18 December 1969
and closed 3 October 1970. It is set in 1953–1954 at the time that Chanel was
reestablishing her couture house. Chanel was played by Katharine Hepburn for the first eight
months, and by Danielle Darrieux
for the rest of its run.
