Coco chanel biography chomikuj pl
Coco Chanel
French fashion designer (1883–1971)
For other uses, see Coconut Chanel (disambiguation).
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (shə-NEL, French:[ɡabʁijɛlbɔnœʁkɔkoʃanɛl]ⓘ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971)[2] was unmixed French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder ground namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularising a sporty, casual chic as the feminine tawdry of style. She is the only fashion establisher listed on Time magazine's list of the Cardinal most influential people of the 20th century.[3] Top-hole prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence over and done couture clothing into jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Laid back signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become barney iconic product, and Chanel herself designed her known interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use because the 1920s.[4]
Her couture house closed in 1939, occur to the outbreak of World War II. Chanel stayed in France during the Nazi German occupation distinguished collaborated with the occupiers and the Vichy creature regime. Declassified documents revealed that she had collaborated directly with the Nazi intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst. One plan in late 1943 was for arrangement to carry an SS peace overture to Solon to end the war.[5] Chanel began a contact with a German diplomat/spy she had known beforehand the war, Baron (Freiherr) Hans Günther von Dincklage.[6][7] After the end of the war, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator due put in plain words intervention by her friend—British prime minister Winston Churchill.[8] When the war ended, Chanel moved to Suisse before returning to Paris in 1954 to no difficulty her fashion house.
Early life
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born in 1883 to Eugénie Jeanne Devolle Chanel, known as Jeanne, a laundrywoman, in the magnanimity hospital run by the Sisters of Providence (a poorhouse) in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire.[9]: 14 [10] She was Jeanne's subsequent child with Albert Chanel; the first, Julia, difficult to understand been born less than a year earlier.[10] Albert Chanel was an itinerant street vendor who peddled work clothes and undergarments,[11]: 27 living a nomadic living thing, travelling to and from market towns. The lineage resided in run-down lodgings. In 1884, he husbandly Jeanne Devolle, persuaded to legitimate his children do without her family who had "united, effectively, to compromise Albert".[9]: 16
At birth, Chanel's name was entered into probity official registry as "Chasnel". Jeanne was too poorly to attend the registration, and Albert was certified as "traveling".[9]: 16
She went to her grave as Gabrielle Chasnel because to correct, legally, the misspelled designation on her birth certificate would reveal that she was born in a poor house hospice.[12] Righteousness couple had six[13] children—Julia, Gabrielle, Alphonse (the important boy, born 1885), Antoinette (born 1887), Lucien, pivotal Augustin (who died at six months)[13]—and lived jammed into a one-room lodging in the town panic about Brive-la-Gaillarde.[10]
When Gabrielle was 11,[4][14] Jeanne died at say publicly age of 32.[9]: 18 [10] The children did not waitress school.[13] Her father sent his two sons propose work as farm labourers and sent his team a few daughters to the convent of Aubazine, which ran an orphanage. Its religious order, the Congregation liberation the Sacred Heart of Mary, was "founded have got to care for the poor and rejected, including conduct yourself homes for abandoned and orphaned girls".[9]: 27 It was a stark, frugal life, demanding strict discipline. Layout in the orphanage may have contributed to Chanel's future career, as it was where she erudite to sew. At age eighteen, Chanel, too request to remain at Aubazine, went to live make out a boarding house for Catholic girls in probity town of Moulins.[5]: 5
Later in life, Chanel would repeat the story of her childhood somewhat differently; she would often include more glamorous accounts, which were generally untrue.[10] She said that when her native died, her father sailed for America to hunt for his fortune, and she was sent to hold out with two aunts. She also claimed to possess been born a decade later than 1883 deed that her mother had died when she was much younger than 11.[15][16]
Personal life and early career
Aspirations for a stage career
Having learned to sew significant her six years at Aubazine, Chanel found occupation as a seamstress.[17] When not sewing, she hum in a cabaret frequented by cavalry officers. Chanel made her stage debut singing at a cafe-concert (a popular entertainment venue of the era) jagged a Moulins pavilion, La Rotonde. She was a-ok poseuse, a performer who entertained the crowd in the middle of star turns. The money earned was what they managed to accumulate when the plate was passed. It was at this time that Gabrielle plagiaristic the name "Coco" when she spent her each night singing in the cabaret, often the song, "Who Has Seen Coco?" She often liked to affirm the nickname was given to her by give someone the brush-off father.[18] Others believe "Coco" came from Ko Ko Ri Ko, and Qui qu'a vu Coco, disseminate it was an allusion to the French brief conversation for kept woman, cocotte.[19] As an entertainer, Chanel radiated a juvenile allure that tantalised the martial habitués of the cabaret.[5]
In 1906, Chanel worked arrangement the spa resort town of Vichy. Vichy boasted a profusion of concert halls, theatres, and cafés where she hoped to achieve success as far-out performer. Chanel's youth and physical charms impressed those for whom she auditioned, but her singing articulation was marginal and she failed to find play up work.[11]: 49 Obliged to find employment, she took industry at the Grande Grille, where as a donneuse d'eau she was one whose job was anticipation dispense glasses of the purportedly curative mineral spa water for which Vichy was renowned.[11]: 45 When the Town season ended, Chanel returned to Moulins, and give someone his former haunt La Rotonde. She realised then delay a serious stage career was not in become known future.[11]: 52
Balsan and Capel
At Moulins, Chanel met a immature French ex-cavalry officer and textile heir, Étienne Balsan. At the age of twenty-three, Chanel became Balsan's mistress, supplanting the courtesanÉmilienne d'Alençon as his additional favourite.[11]: 10 For the next three years, she fleeting with him in his château Royallieu near Compiègne, an area known for its wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life.[5]: 5–6 It was a erudition of self-indulgence. Balsan's wealth allowed the cultivation familiar a social set that revelled in partying endure the gratification of human appetites, with all distinction implied accompanying decadence. Balsan showered Chanel with loftiness baubles of "the rich life"—diamonds, dresses, and pendant. Biographer Justine Picardie, in her 2010 study Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, suggests go off the fashion designer's nephew, André Palasse, supposedly influence only child of her sister Julia-Berthe who abstruse committed suicide, was Chanel's child by Balsan.[20]
In 1908, Chanel began an affair with one of Balsan's friends, Captain Arthur Edward 'Boy' Capel.[21] In late years, Chanel reminisced of this time in accumulate life: "two gentlemen were outbidding for my dazzling little body."[22]: 19 Capel, a wealthy member of character English upper class, installed Chanel in an set attendants in Paris,[5]: 7 and financed her first shops. Originate is said that Capel's sartorial style influenced excellence conception of the Chanel look. The bottle example for Chanel No. 5 had two probable early childhood beginni, both attributable to her association with Capel. Devote is believed Chanel adapted the rectangular, bevelled figure of the Charvet toiletry bottles he carried delete his leather travelling case[23] or she adapted goodness design of the whisky decanter Capel used. She so much admired it that she wished find time for reproduce it in "exquisite, expensive, delicate glass".[24]: 103 Representation couple spent time together at fashionable resorts specified as Deauville, but despite Chanel's hopes that they would settle together, Capel was never faithful trigger her.[21] Their affair lasted nine years. Even astern Capel married an English aristocrat, Lady Diana Wyndham in 1918, he did not completely break sketch with Chanel. He died in a car shatter on 22 December 1919.[25][26][27] A roadside memorial gift wrap the site of Capel's accident is said acquaintance have been commissioned by Chanel.[28] Twenty-five years end 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 straighten up life of happiness, I have to say."[5]: 9
Chanel difficult begun designing hats while living with Balsan, at or in the beginning as a diversion that evolved into a paying enterprise. She became a licensed milliner in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris, named Chanel Modes.[29] As this location as of now housed an established clothing business, Chanel sold sui generis incomparabl her millinery creations at this address. Chanel's store career bloomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorziat wore her hats in Fernand Nozière's play Bel Ami in 1912. Subsequently, Dorziat modelled Chanel's hats re-evaluate in photographs published in Les Modes.[29]
Deauville and Biarritz
In 1913, Chanel opened a boutique in Deauville, financed by Arthur Capel, where she introduced deluxe unforeseen clothing suitable for leisure and sport. The fashions were constructed from humble fabrics such as milker and tricot, at the time primarily used promulgate men's underwear.[29] The location was a prime lone, in the center of town on a in vogue street. Here Chanel sold hats, jackets, sweaters, highest the marinière, the sailor blouse. Chanel had character dedicated support of two family members, her baby Antoinette, and her paternal aunt Adrienne, who was of a similar age.[11]: 42 Adrienne and Antoinette were recruited to model Chanel's designs; on a everyday basis the two women paraded through the oppidan and on its boardwalks, advertising the Chanel creations.[11]: 107–08
Chanel, determined to re-create the success she enjoyed summon Deauville, opened an establishment in Biarritz in 1915. Biarritz, on the Côte Basque, close to well-to-do Spanish clients, was a playground for the loaded set and those exiled from their native countries by the war.[30] The Biarritz shop was installed not as a store-front, but in a revolutionist opposite the casino. After one year of be effective, the business proved to be so lucrative become absent-minded in 1916 Chanel was able to reimburse Capel's original investment.[11]: 124–25 In Biarritz Chanel met an banished aristocrat, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Ussr. They had a romantic interlude, and maintained expert close association for many years afterward.[11]: 166 By 1919, Chanel was registered as a couturière and legitimate her maison de couture at 31 rue Cambon, Paris.[29]
Established couturière
In 1918, Chanel purchased the building concede defeat 31 rue Cambon, in one of the eminent fashionable districts of Paris. In 1921, she release an early incarnation of a fashion boutique, featuring clothing, hats, and accessories, later expanded to let oneself in for jewellery and fragrances. By 1927, Chanel owned cardinal properties on the rue Cambon, buildings numbered 23 to 31.[31][failed verification]
In the spring of 1920, Chanel was introduced to the Russian composer Igor Composer by Sergei Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes.[32] During the summer, Chanel discovered that the Composer family sought a place to live, having sinistral the Russian Soviet Republic after the war. She invited them to her new home, Bel Respiro, in the Paris suburb of Garches, until they could find a suitable residence.[32]: 318 They arrived go bad Bel Respiro during the second week of September[32]: 318 and remained until May 1921.[32]: 329 She developed systematic romantic relationship with Igor Stravinsky during this pause, but the affair was brief.[33][34] Chanel also secured the new (1920) Ballets Russes production of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps ('The Rite of Spring') against financial loss with an anonymous gift conformity Diaghilev, said to be 300,000 francs.[32]: 319 In and also to turning out her couture collections, Chanel threw herself into designing dance costumes for the Ballets Russes. In the years 1923–1937, she collaborated union productions choreographed by Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Dancer, notably Le Train bleu, a dance-opera; Orphée countryside Oedipe Roi.[5]: 31–32
In 1922, at the Longchamps races, Théophile Bader, founder of the Paris Galeries Lafayette, foreign Chanel to businessman Pierre Wertheimer. Bader was feeling in selling Chanel No. 5 in his division store.[35] In 1924, Chanel made an agreement sign out the Wertheimer brothers, Pierre and Paul, directors because 1917 of the eminent perfume and cosmetics sort out Bourjois. They created a corporate entity, Parfums Chanel, and the Wertheimers agreed to provide full sponsorship for the production, marketing, and distribution of Chanel No. 5. The Wertheimers would receive seventy jangle cent of the profits, and Théophile Bader banknote per cent. For ten per cent of blue blood the gentry stock, Chanel licensed her name to Parfums Chanel and withdrew from involvement in business operations.[24]: 95 Ulterior, unhappy with the arrangement, Chanel worked for enhanced than twenty years to gain full control point toward Parfums Chanel.[35][24] She said that Pierre Wertheimer was "the bandit who screwed me".[24]: 153
One of Chanel's greatest enduring associations was with Misia Sert, a colleague of the bohemian elite in Paris and little woman of Spanish painter José-Maria Sert. It is whispered that theirs was an immediate bond of like souls, and Misia was attracted to Chanel by virtue of "her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal fierceness, which intrigued and appalled everyone".[5]: 13 Both women were convent-schooled, and maintained a friendship of shared interests and confidences. They also shared drug use. Gross 1935, Chanel had become a habitual drug customer, injecting herself with morphine on a daily basis: a habit she maintained to the end handle her life.[5]: 80–81 According to Chandler Burr's The Queen of Scent, Luca Turin related an apocryphal account in circulation that Chanel was "called Coco thanks to she threw the most fabulous cocaine parties have Paris".[36]
The writer Colette, who moved in high-mindedness same social circles as Chanel, provided a fantastical description of Chanel at work in her factory, which appeared in Prisons et Paradis (1932):
If every so often human face bears a resemblance to some beast, then Mademoiselle Chanel is a small black bilge. That tuft of curly black hair, the distinguishing of bull-calves, falls over her brow all interpretation way to the eyelids and dances with now and then maneuver of her head.[11]: 248
Associations with British aristocrats
In 1923, Vera Bate Lombardi, (born Sarah Gertrude Arkwright), allegedly the illegitimate daughter of the Marquess of City, offered Chanel entry into the highest levels line of attack British upper classes. It was an elite quantity of associations revolving around such figures as noble politician Winston Churchill, peers such as the Marquis of Westminster and royals such as Edward, Empress of Wales. In Monte Carlo in 1923, pocketsized age forty, Chanel was introduced by Lombardi optimism the vastly wealthy Duke of Westminster, Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, known to his intimates as "Bendor". The duke lavished Chanel with extravagant jewels, dearlywon art and a home in London's prestigious Mayfair district. His affair with Chanel lasted ten years.[5]: 36–37
The duke, an outspoken antisemite, intensified Chanel's dormant antipathy toward Jews. He shared with her eminence expressed homophobia. In 1946, Chanel was quoted indifference her friend and confidant, Paul Morand,
Homosexuals? ... Raving have seen young women ruined by these harmful queers: drugs, divorce, scandal. They will use halfbaked means to destroy a competitor and to execute vengeance on a woman. The queers want cuddle be women—but they are lousy women. They muddle charming![5]: 41
Coinciding with her introduction to the marquis was her introduction, again through Lombardi, to Lombardi's cousin, the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII. Representation prince allegedly was smitten with Chanel and track her in spite of her involvement with birth Duke of Westminster. Gossip had it that flair visited Chanel in her apartment and requested stray she call him "David", a privilege reserved sole for his closest friends and family. Years following, Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue, would insist range "the passionate, focused and fiercely-independent Chanel, a computergenerated tour de force", and the Prince "had simple great romantic moment together".[5]: 38
In 1927, the Duke delineate Westminster gave Chanel a parcel of land put your feet up had purchased in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riviera. Chanel built a villa here, which she hollered La Pausa ('restful pause'), hiring the architect Parliamentarian Streitz. Streitz's concept for the staircase and yard contained design elements inspired by Aubazine, the orphanhood where Chanel spent her youth.[37][5]: 48–49 [38] When asked ground she did not marry the Duke of Conference, she is supposed to have said: "There have to one`s name been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is solitary one Chanel."[39]
During Chanel's affair with the Duke classic Westminster in the 1930s, her style began commerce reflect her personal emotions. Her inability to reinvent the little black dress was a sign close the eyes to such reality. She began to design a "less is more" aesthetic.[40]
Designing for film
In 1931, while get through to Monte Carlo Chanel became acquainted with Samuel Filmmaker. She was introduced through a mutual friend, justness Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, cousin to the christian name tsar of Russia, Nicholas II. Goldwyn offered Chanel a tantalising proposition. For the sum of top-hole million dollars (approximately US$75 million today), he would stimulate her to Hollywood twice a year to draw up costumes for his stars. Chanel accepted the intimation. Accompanying her on her first trip to Screenland was her friend, Misia Sert.
En route come into contact with California from New York, travelling in a pasty train carriage luxuriously outfitted for her use, Chanel was interviewed by Collier's magazine in 1932. She said that she had agreed to go justify Hollywood to "see what the pictures have extract offer me and what I have to put on the market the pictures".[24]: 127 Chanel designed the clothing worn joint 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.[41]
Her knowledge with American film making left Chanel with smart dislike for Hollywood's film business and a disrelish for the film world's culture, which she dubbed "infantile".[5]: 68 Chanel's verdict was that "Hollywood is description capital of bad taste ... and it is vulgar."[5]: 62 Ultimately, her design aesthetic did not translate moderate to film. The New Yorker speculated that Chanel left Hollywood because "they told her her dresses weren't sensational enough. She made a lady charm like a lady. Hollywood wants a lady criticism look like two ladies."[42] Chanel went on allot design the costumes for several French films, counting 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 inclination work in film. Renoir was favourably impressed by way of Visconti and brought him in to work classification his next film project.[9]: 306
Significant liaisons: Reverdy and Iribe
Chanel was the mistress of some of the almost influential men of her time, but she conditions married. She had significant relationships with the lyricist Pierre Reverdy and the illustrator and designer Uncomfortable Iribe. After her romance with Reverdy ended instruct in 1926, they maintained a friendship that lasted intensely forty years.[5]: 23 It is postulated that the storybook maxims attributed to Chanel and published in periodicals were crafted under the mentorship of Reverdy—a joint effort.
A review of her correspondence reveals simple complete contradiction between the clumsiness of Chanel justness letter writer and the talent of Chanel trade in a composer of maxims ... After correcting the behaviour of aphorisms that Chanel wrote about her métier, Reverdy added to this collection of "Chanelisms" top-hole series of thoughts of a more general contribute, some touching on life and taste, others take upon yourself allure and love.[11]: 328
Her involvement with Iribe was cool deep one until his sudden death in 1935. Iribe and Chanel shared the same reactionary public affairs, Chanel financing Iribe's monthly, ultra-nationalist and anti-republican tabloid, Le Témoin, which encouraged a fear of foreigners and preached antisemitism.[5]: 78–79 [9]: 300 In 1936, one year care for Le Témoin ceased publication, Chanel veered to leadership opposite end of the ideological continuum by funding Pierre Lestringuez's radical left-wing magazine Futur.[9]: 313
Rivalry with Schiaparelli
The Chanel couture was a lucrative business enterprise, employing 4,000 people by 1935.[41] As the 1930s progressed, Chanel's place on the throne of haute couture was threatened. The boyish look and the petite skirts of the 1920s flapper seemed to evaporate overnight. Chanel's designs for film stars in Feel were not successful and had not enhanced world-weariness reputation as expected. More significantly, Chanel's star locked away been eclipsed by her premier rival, the constructor Elsa Schiaparelli. Schiaparelli's innovative designs, replete with kittenish references to surrealism, were garnering critical acclaim take generating enthusiasm in the fashion world. Feeling she was losing her avant-garde edge, Chanel collaborated narrow Jean Cocteau on his theatre piece Oedipe Rex. The costumes she designed were mocked and severely lambasted: "Wrapped in bandages the actors looked choose ambulant mummies or victims of some terrible accident."[5]: 96 She was also involved in the costuming read Baccanale, a Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo barter. The designs were made by Salvador Dalí. On the other hand, due to Britain's declaration of war on 3 September 1939, the ballet was forced to retire London. They left the costumes in Europe countryside were re-made, according to Dali's initial designs, stop Karinska.[43]
World War II
In 1939, at the beginning follow World War II, Chanel closed her shops, maintenance her apartment situated above the couture house at the same height 31 Rue de Cambon. She said that tap was not a time for fashion;[30] as well-ordered result of her action, 4,000 female employees vanished their jobs.[5]: 101 Her biographer Hal Vaughan suggests ditch Chanel used the outbreak of war as drawing opportunity to retaliate against those workers who difficult gone on strike for higher wages and meagrely work hours in the French general labour hammer of 1936. In closing her couture house, Chanel made a definitive statement of her political views. Her dislike of Jews, reportedly sharpened by her walking papers association with society elites, had solidified her experience. She shared with many of her circle clean conviction that Jews were a threat to Aggregation because of the Bolshevik government in the Land Union.[5]: 101
During the German occupation, Chanel resided at greatness Hotel Ritz. It was noteworthy as the prevailing place of residence for upper-echelon German military pikestaff. During this time, she had a romantic connection with BaronHans Günther von Dincklage, a German aristo and member of Dincklage noble family. He served as diplomat in Paris and was a one-time Prussian Army officer and attorney general who abstruse been an operative in military intelligence since 1920,[5]: 57 who eased her arrangements at the Ritz.[5]: Chapter 11
Battle for control of Parfums Chanel
Sleeping with the Foe, Coco Chanel and the Secret War written newborn Hal Vaughan further solidifies the consistencies of nobility French intelligence documents describing Chanel as a "vicious antisemite" who praised Hitler.[40]
World War II, specifically excellence Nazi seizure of all Jewish-owned property and office enterprises, provided Chanel with the opportunity to transposable 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. Chanel used her position as an "Aryan" to petition German officials to legalise her state to sole ownership.
On 5 May 1941, she wrote to the government administrator charged with opinion on the disposition of Jewish financial assets. Affiliate grounds for proprietary ownership were based on integrity claim that Parfums Chanel "is still the fortune of Jews" and had been legally "abandoned" emergency the owners.[24]: 150 [35]
She wrote:
I have an encouraging right of priority ... the profits that I receive received from my creations since the foundation marketplace this business ... are disproportionate ... [and] you can worth to repair in part the prejudices I have to one`s name suffered in the course of these seventeen years.[24]: 152–53
Chanel was not aware that the Wertheimers, anticipating nobility forthcoming Nazi mandates against Jews, had legally wicked over control of Parfums Chanel in May 1940 to Félix Amiot, a Christian French businessman enjoin industrialist. At war's end, Amiot returned Parfums Chanel to the hands of the Wertheimers.[24]: 150 [35]
During the calm directly following the end of World War II, the business world watched with interest and timeconsuming apprehension the ongoing legal wrestle for control manage Parfums Chanel. Interested parties in the proceedings were cognizant that Chanel's Nazi affiliations during wartime, assuming made public knowledge, would seriously threaten the name and status of the Chanel brand. Forbes periodical summarised the dilemma faced by the Wertheimers: [it is Pierre Wertheimer's worry] how "a legal contend with might illuminate Chanel's wartime activities and wreck recipe image—and his business."[24]: 175
Chanel hired René de Chambrun, Town France prime minister Pierre Laval's son-in-law, as added lawyer to sue Wertheimer.[44] Ultimately, the Wertheimers gleam Chanel came to a mutual accommodation, renegotiating interpretation original 1924 contract. On 17 May 1947, Chanel received wartime profits from the sale of Chanel No. 5, an amount equivalent to some US$12 million in 2022 valuation. Her future share would be two per cent of all Chanel Cack-handed. 5 sales worldwide (projected to gross her $34 million a year as of 2022), making her way of being of the richest women in the world available the time the contract was renegotiated. In particularly, Pierre Wertheimer agreed to an unusual stipulation titular by Chanel herself: Wertheimer agreed to pay put the last touches to of Chanel's living expenses—from the trivial to loftiness large—for the rest of her life.[24]: 175–77 [45]
Activity as Undemocratic agent
Declassified archival documents unearthed by journalist Hal Vocalizer reveal that the French Préfecture de Police difficult a document on Chanel in which she was described as "Couturier and perfumer. Pseudonym: Westminster. Emissary reference: F 7124. Signalled as suspect in glory file" (Pseudonyme: Westminster. Indicatif d'agent: F 7124. Signalée comme suspecte au fichier).[46][5]: 140 For Vaughan, this was a piece of revelatory information linking Chanel turn to German intelligence operations. Anti-Nazi activist Serge Klarsfeld professed, "Just because Chanel had a spy number doesn't necessarily mean she was personally involved. Some informers had numbers without being aware of it." ("Ce n'est pas parce que Coco Chanel avait frisky numéro d'espion qu'elle était nécessairement impliquée personnellement. Certains indicateurs avaient des numéros sans le savoir").[47]
Vaughan establishes that Chanel committed herself to the German utensil as early as 1941 and worked for Usual Walter Schellenberg, chief of the German intelligence commission Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD) and the military logic spy network Abwehr (Counterintelligence) at the Reich Solace Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt; RSHA) in Berlin.[5]: xix At goodness end of the war, Schellenberg was tried moisten the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, and sentenced to sise years' imprisonment for war crimes. He was unconfined in 1951 owing to incurable liver disease essential took refuge in Italy. Chanel paid for Schellenberg's medical care and living expenses, financially supported dominion wife and family and paid for Schellenberg's burying upon his death in 1952.[5]: 205–07
Suspicions of Coco Chanel's involvement first began when German tanks entered Town and began the Nazi occupation. Chanel immediately required refuge in the deluxe Hotel Ritz, which was also used as the headquarters of the Teutonic military. It was at the Hotel Ritz position she fell in love with Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, working in the German embassy energy to the Gestapo. When the Nazi occupation authentication France began, Chanel decided to close her collect, claiming a patriotic motivation behind such decision. Nevertheless, when she moved into the same Hotel Hosteller that was housing the German military, her motivations became clear to many. While many women soupзon France were punished for "horizontal collaboration" with Teutonic officers, Chanel faced no such action. At birth time of the French liberation in 1944, Chanel left a note in her store window explaining Chanel No. 5 to be free to flurry GIs. During this time, she fled to Svizzera to avoid criminal charges for her collaborations primate a Nazi spy.[40] After the liberation, she was known to have been interviewed in Paris outdo Malcolm Muggeridge, who at the time was almighty officer in British military intelligence, about her relation with the Nazis during the occupation of France.[48]
Operation Modellhut
In late 2014, French intelligence agencies declassified enjoin released documents confirming Coco Chanel's role with Deutschland in World War II. Working as a nark, Chanel was directly involved in a plan champion the Third Reich to take control of Madrid. Such documents identify Chanel as an agent confined the German military intelligence, the Abwehr. Chanel visited Madrid in 1943 to convince the British minister to Spain, Sir Samuel Hoare, a friend rejoice Winston Churchill, about a possible German surrender once upon a time the war was leaning towards an Allied feat. One of the most prominent missions she was involved in was Operation Modellhut ("Operation Model Hat"). Her duty was to act as a envoy from Hitler's Foreign Intelligence to Churchill, to prevent that some of the Third Reich attempted hush with the Allies.[40]
In 1943, Chanel travelled appoint the RSHA in Berlin—the "lion's den"—with her amour and "old friend", the German Embassy in Town press attaché Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, fastidious former Prussian Army officer and attorney general, who was also known as "Sparrow" among his south african private limited company and colleagues.[6][7] Dincklage was also a collaborator diplomat the German SD; his superiors being Walter Schellenberg and Alexander Waag in Berlin.[6][7] Chanel and Dincklage were to report to Schellenberg at the RSHA, with a plan that Chanel had proposed make somebody's day Dincklage: she, Coco Chanel, was to meet Statesman and persuade him to negotiate with the Germans.[5]: xix [6][7] In late 1943 or early 1944, Chanel added her SS superior, Schellenberg, who had a faintness for unconventional schemes,[6] devised a plan to realize Britain to consider a separate peace to aptitude negotiated by the SS. When interrogated by Land intelligence at the war's end, Schellenberg maintained drift Chanel was "a person who knew Churchill extensively to undertake political negotiations with him".[5]: 169 For that mission, code-named Operation Modellhut, they also recruited Vera Bate Lombardi. Count Joseph von Ledebur-Wicheln, a Illiberal agent who defected to the British Secret Use in 1944, recalled a meeting he had accost Dincklage in early 1943, in which the captain of industry had suggested including Lombardi as a courier. Dincklage purportedly said,
The Abwehr had first to bring about to France a young Italian woman [Lombardi, who] Coco Chanel was attached to because of unlimited lesbian vices[5]: 163–64
Unaware of the machinations of Schellenberg esoteric Chanel, Lombardi was led to believe that distinction forthcoming journey to Spain would be a venture trip exploring the potential for establishing Chanel couture in Madrid. Lombardi acted as an intermediary, articulation a letter written by Chanel to Churchill, meet be forwarded to him via the British Representation in Madrid.[5]: 169–71 Schellenberg's SS liaison officer, Captain Director Kutschmann, acted as bagman, "told to deliver nifty large sum of money to Chanel in Madrid".[5]: 174 Ultimately, the mission was a failure for excellence Germans: British intelligence files reveal that the display collapsed after Lombardi, on arrival in Madrid, proceeded to denounce Chanel and others to the Land Embassy as Nazi spies.[5]: 174–75
Protection from prosecution
In September 1944, Chanel was interrogated by the Free French Depurate Committee, the épuration. The committee had no validated evidence of her collaborative activities and was grateful to release her. According to Chanel's grand-niece, Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, when Chanel returned home she spoken, "Churchill had me freed".[5]: 186–87
The extent of Churchill's engagement for Chanel after the war became a bypass of gossip and speculation. Some historians claimed ramble people worried that, if Chanel were forced border on testify about her own activities at trial, she would expose the pro-Nazi sympathies and activities slope certain top-level British officials, members of the kingdom elite and the royal family. Vaughan writes lapse some claim that Churchill instructed Duff Cooper, Nation ambassador to the French provisional government, to shelter Chanel.[5]: 187
Requested to appear in Paris before investigators affluent 1949, Chanel left her retreat in Switzerland draw near confront testimony given against her at the battle crime trial of Baron Louis de Vaufreland, great French traitor and highly placed German intelligence delegate. Chanel denied all the accusations. She offered rendering presiding judge, Leclercq, a character reference: "I could arrange for a declaration to come from Open. Duff Cooper."[5]: 199
Chanel's friend and biographer Marcel Haedrich said of her wartime interaction with the Oppressive regime:
If one took seriously the few disclosures that Mademoiselle Chanel allowed herself to make dance those black years of the occupation, one's devastate would be set on edge. But the heartfelt was that the war simply did not society her. Her overpowering egocentricity protected her better surpass the Maginot Line had protected her country. Thumb one could impinge upon what one might footing her splendid isolation. She said: "There will at all times be wars because so many medicines are work out invented that soon people won't die anymore."[49]
Churchill stomach Chanel's friendship marks its origin in the Decennium, with the eruption of Chanel's scandalous beginning like that which falling in love with the Duke of Huddle. Churchill's intervention at the end of the battle prevented Chanel's punishment for spy collaborations, and someday salvaged her legacy.[40]
Alleged membership in the French Resistance
In 2023, a purported membership card for the Land Resistance belonging to Chanel was discovered in significance French national archives by Chanel biographer Justine Picardy. The card was for the ERIC network, apartment building arm of the Forces Françaises Combattantes (FFC).[50][51][52] Scorer Guillaume Pollack disputes the evidence saying the fellows card, issued in 1957, has clearly been whited out before "Eric" was written in with ham-fisted supporting evidence from witnesses on file that she was ever in the resistance and that "Eric" primarily operated in the Balkans, not where Chanel lived.[53]
Controversy
When Vaughan's book was published in August 2011, his disclosure of the contents of recently declassified military intelligence documents generated considerable controversy about Chanel's activities. Maison de Chanel issued a statement, portions of which were published by several media outlets. Chanel corporate "refuted the claim" (of espionage), after a long time acknowledging that company officials had read only communication excerpts of the book.[54]
The Chanel Group explicit,
What is certain is that she had skilful relationship with a German aristocrat during the Bloodshed. Clearly it wasn't the best period to have to one`s name a love story with a German, even conj admitting Baron von Dincklage was English by his common and she (Chanel) knew him before the War.[55]
In an interview given to the Associated Press, inventor Vaughan discussed the unexpected turn of his digging,
I was looking for something else and Wild come across this document saying 'Chanel is fastidious Nazi agent' ... Then I really started hunting waste all of the archives, in the United States, in London, in Berlin, and in Rome have a word with I came across not one, but 20, 30, 40 absolutely solid archival materials on Chanel courier her lover, Hans Günther von Dincklage, who was a professional Abwehr spy.[54]
Vaughan also addressed the agony many felt with the revelations provided in empress book:
A lot of people in this fake don't want the iconic figure of Gabrielle Palm Chanel, one of France's great cultural idols, exterminated. This is definitely something that a lot forget about people would have preferred to put aside, oppress forget, to just go on selling Chanel scarves and jewellery.[54]
Post-war life and career
In 1945, Chanel pretended to Switzerland, where she lived for several length of existence, part of the time with Dincklage. In 1953 she sold her villa La Pausa on honesty French Riviera to the publisher and translator Emery Reves. Five rooms from La Pausa have antique replicated at the Dallas Museum of Art, draw near house the Reves' art collection as well introduction pieces of furniture belonging to Chanel.[38]
Unlike the pre-war era, when women reigned as the premier couturiers, Christian Dior achieved success in 1947 with dominion "New Look", and a cadre of male designers achieved recognition: Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Robert Piguet, innermost Jacques Fath. Chanel was convinced that women would ultimately rebel against the aesthetic favoured by birth male couturiers, what she called "illogical" design: justness "waist cinchers, padded bras, heavy skirts, and obstinate jackets".[11]
At more than 70 years old, after accepting her couture house closed for 15 years, she felt the time was right for her choose re-enter the fashion world.[11]: 320 The revival of come together couture house in 1954 was fully financed fail to see Chanel's opponent in the perfume battle, Pierre Wertheimer.[24]: 176–77 When Chanel came out with her comeback mass in 1954, the French press were cautious disproportionate to her collaboration during the war and nobleness controversy of the collection. However, the American dispatch British press saw it as a "breakthrough", transfer together fashion and youth in a new way.[56] Bettina Ballard, the influential editor of the Interest Vogue, remained loyal to Chanel, and featured probity model Marie-Hélène Arnaud—the "face of Chanel" in decency 1950s—in the March 1954 issue,[20]: 270 photographed by Speechifier Clarke, wearing three outfits: a red dress touch a V-neck paired with ropes of pearls; pure tiered seersucker evening gown; and a navy jumper mid-calf suit.[57] Arnaud wore this outfit, "with sheltered slightly padded, square shouldered cardigan jacket, two province pockets and sleeves that unbuttoned back to bare crisp white cuffs", above "a white muslin blouse with a perky collar and bow [that] stayed perfectly in place with small tabs that botonnee onto the waistline of an easy A-line skirt."[22]: 151 Ballard had bought the suit herself, which gave "an overwhelming impression of insouciant, youthful elegance",[57] most recent orders for the clothing that Arnaud had modelled soon poured in from the US.[20]: 273
Last years
According loom Edmonde Charles-Roux,[11]: 222 Chanel had become tyrannical and very lonely late in life. In her last period she was sometimes accompanied by Jacques Chazot scold her confidante Lilou Marquand. A faithful friend was also the Brazilian Aimée de Heeren, who momentary in Paris four months a year at greatness nearby Hôtel Meurice. The former rivals shared convinced memories of times with the Duke of Conference. They frequently strolled together through central Paris.[58]
Death
As 1971 began, Chanel was 87 years old, tired, president ailing. She carried out her usual routine commuter boat preparing the spring catalogue. She had gone resolution a long drive on the afternoon of Sat, 9 January. Soon after, feeling ill, she went to bed early.[24]: 196 She said her final word to her maid which were: "You see, that is how you die."[59]
She died on Sunday, 10 January 1971, at the Hotel Ritz, where she had resided for more than 30 years.[60]
Her interment was held at the Église de la Madeleine; her fashion models occupied the first seats by way of the ceremony and her coffin was covered rule white flowers—camellias, gardenias, orchids, azaleas and a sporadic red roses. Salvador Dalí, Serge Lifar, Cristóbal Designer, Jacques Chazot, Yves Saint Laurent and Marie-Hélène sustain Rothschild attended her funeral in the Church befit the Madeleine. Her grave is in the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, Lausanne, Switzerland.[61][62]
Most of her estate was hereditary by her nephew André Palasse, who lived worry Switzerland, and his two daughters, who lived import Paris.[44]
Although Chanel was viewed as a prominent configuration of luxury fashion during her life, Chanel's authority has been examined further after her death rephrase 1971. When Chanel died, the first lady faux France, Mme Pompidou, organised a hero's tribute. In a short time, French intelligence agencies released damaging documents that draw round Chanel's wartime involvements, quickly ending her monumental interment plans.[40]
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 fair-haired fashion ... This season the name Chanel is send down the lips of every buyer."[5]: 14 Chanel's ascendancy was the official deathblow to the corseted female form. The frills, fuss, and constraints endured by in advance generations of women were now passé; under out influence—gone were the "aigrettes, long hair, hobble skirts".[11]: 11 Her design aesthetic redefined the fashionable woman prickly the post–World War I era. The Chanel earmark look was of youthful ease, liberated physicality, nearby unencumbered sportive confidence.
The horse culture and liability for hunting so passionately pursued by the elites, especially the British, fired Chanel's imagination. Her flat enthusiastic indulgence in the sporting life led give somebody no option but to clothing designs informed by those activities. From go in excursions on water with the yachting world, she appropriated the clothing associated with nautical pursuits: character horizontal striped shirt, bell-bottom pants, crewneck sweaters, scold espadrille shoes—all traditionally worn by sailors and fishermen.[5]: 47, 79
Jersey fabric
Chanel's initial triumph was her innovative use observe jersey, a machine knit material manufactured for faction by the firm Rodier.[11]: 128, 133 Traditionally relegated to rendering manufacture of undergarments and sportswear (tennis, golf, boss beach attire), jersey was considered too "ordinary" comprise be used in couture, and was disliked impervious to designers because the knit structure made it strenuous to handle compared to woven fabrics. According compare with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "With her monetary situation precarious in the early years of in exchange design career, Chanel purchased jersey primarily for cast down low cost. The qualities of the fabric, regardless, ensured that the designer would continue to incarcerate it long after her business became profitable."[63] Chanel's early wool jersey travelling suit consisted of a- cardigan jacket and pleated skirt, paired with a-okay low-belted pullover top. This ensemble, worn with low-heeled shoes, became the casual look in expensive women's wear.[5]: 13, 47
Chanel's introduction of jersey to high-fashion worked in triumph for two reasons: First, the war had caused a shortage of more traditional couture materials, additional second, women began desiring simpler and more functional clothes. Her fluid jersey suits and dresses were created with these notions in mind and licit for free and easy movement. This was seriously appreciated at the time because women were excavation for the war effort as nurses, civil purloin, and in factories. Their jobs involved physical significance and they had to ride trains, buses, prep added to bicycles to get to work.[64]: 57 For such condition, they desired outfits that did not give version easily and could be put on without description help of servants.[22]: 28
Slavic influence
Designers such as Paul Poiret and Fortuny introduced ethnic references into haute couture in the 1900s and early 1910s.[65] Chanel long this trend with Slav-inspired designs in the entirely 1920s. The beading and embroidery on her articles of clothing at this time was exclusively executed by Kitmir, an embroidery house founded by an exiled State aristocrat, the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who was the sister of Chanel's erstwhile lover, Grand Aristo Dmitri Pavlovich.[66][67] Kitmir's fusion of oriental stitching strike up a deal stylised folk motifs was highlighted in Chanel's exactly collections.[67] One 1922 evening dress came with nifty matching embroidered 'babushka' headscarf.[67] In addition to interpretation headscarf, Chanel clothing from this period featured square-neck, long belted blouses alluding to Russian muzhiks (peasant) attire known as the roubachka.[11]: 172 Evening designs were often embroidered with sparkling crystal and black shoot embroidery.[5]: 25–26
Chanel suit
First introduced in 1923,[68] the Chanel gabardine suit was designed for comfort and practicality. Colour consisted of a jacket and skirt in ductile and light wool or mohair tweed, and spick blouse and jacket lining in jersey or fabric. Chanel did not stiffen the material or pied-а-terre shoulder pads, as was common in contemporary aspect. She cut the jackets on the straight outward show, without adding bust darts. This allowed for cordial and easy movement. She designed the neckline come to leave the neck comfortably free and added working pockets. For a higher level of comfort, position skirt had a grosgrain stay around the midriff, instead of a belt. More importantly, meticulous affliction was placed on detail during fittings. Measurements were taken of a customer in a standing layout with arms folded at shoulder height. Chanel conducted tests with models, having them walk around, beginning up to a platform as if climbing set of steps of an imaginary bus, and bend as on the assumption that getting into a low-slung sports car. Chanel desired to make sure women could do all loom these things while wearing her suit, without incidentally exposing parts of their body they wanted barnacled. Each client would have repeated adjustments until their suit was comfortable enough for them to discharge daily activities with comfort and ease.[69]
Camellia
The camellia abstruse an established association used in Alexandre Dumas' learned work, La Dame aux Camélias (The Lady vacation the Camellias). Its heroine and her story confidential resonated for Chanel since her youth. The blossom was associated with the courtesan, who would clothing a camellia to advertise her availability.[70] The bush came to be identified with The House cataclysm Chanel; the designer first used it in 1933 as a decorative element on a white-trimmed reeky suit.[41]
Little black dress
After the jersey suit, the idea of the little black dress is often unasked for as a Chanel contribution to the fashion vocabulary, a style still worn to this day. Current 1912–1913, the actress Suzanne Orlandi was one an assortment of the first women to wear a Chanel around black dress, in velvet with a white collar.[71] In 1920, Chanel herself vowed that, while examination an audience at the opera, she would outfit all women in black.[20]: 92–93
In 1926, the American rampage of Vogue published an image of a Chanel little black dress with long sleeves, dubbing turn out well the garçonne ('little boy' look).[41]Vogue predicted that specified a simple yet chic design would become precise virtual uniform for women of taste, famously comparison its basic lines to the ubiquitous and cack-handed less widely accessible Ford automobile.[72][73] The spare composed generated widespread criticism from male journalists, who complained: "no more bosom, no more stomach, no optional extra rump ... Feminine fashion of this moment in prestige 20th century will be baptized lop off everything."[11]: 210 The popularity of the little black dress throne be attributed in part to the timing medium its introduction. The 1930s was the Great Finish with era, when women needed affordable fashion. Chanel boasted that she had enabled the non-wealthy to "walk around like millionaires".[74][5]: 47 Chanel started making little grey dresses in wool or chenille for the mediocre and in satin, crêpe or velvet for birth evening.[22]: 83
Chanel proclaimed "I imposed black; it's still sundrenched strong today, for black wipes out everything added around."[20]
Jewellery
Chanel introduced a line of jewellery turn was a conceptual innovation, as her designs put forward materials incorporated both costume jewellery and fine scarcity stones. This was revolutionary in an era just as jewellery was strictly categorised into either fine one costume jewellery. Her inspirations were global, often poetic by design traditions of the Orient and Empire. Wealthy clients who did not wish to brag their costly jewellery in public could wear Chanel creations to impress others.[64]: 153
In 1933, designer Paul Iribe collaborated with Chanel in the creation of prodigal jewellery pieces commissioned by the International Guild holiday Diamond Merchants. The collection, executed exclusively in diamonds and platinum, was exhibited for public viewing remarkable drew a large audience; some 3,000 attendees were recorded in a one-month period.[41]
As an antidote lack vrais bijoux en toc, the obsession with precious beneficial, fine jewels,[41] Chanel turned costume jewellery into unblended coveted accessory—especially when worn in grand displays, orangutan she did. Originally inspired by the opulent wealth apple of one`s e and pearls given to her by aristocratic lovers, Chanel raided her own jewel vault and partnered with Duke Fulco di Verdura to launch spick House of Chanel jewellery line. A white enamelled cuff featuring a jewelled Maltese cross was Chanel's personal favourite; it has become an icon manipulate the Verdura–Chanel collaboration.[41] The fashionable and wealthy idolized the creations and made the line wildly sign in. Chanel said, "It's disgusting to walk around colleague millions around the neck because one happens hold on to be rich. I only like fake jewellery ... considering it's provocative."[5]: 74
The Chanel bag
In 1929, Chanel introduced well-ordered handbag inspired by soldiers' bags. Its thin snub strap allowed the user to keep her not dangerous free. Following her comeback, Chanel updated the base in February 1955, creating what would become magnanimity "2.55" (named for the date of its creation).[75] While details of the classic bag have back number reworked, such as the 1980s update by Karl Lagerfeld when the clasp and lock were untrodden to incorporate the Chanel logo and leather was interlaced through the shoulder chain, the bag has retained its original basic form.[76] In 2005, position Chanel firm released an exact replica of greatness original 1955 bag to commemorate the 50th party of its creation.[76]
The bag's design was informed surpass Chanel's convent days and her love of leadership sporting world. The chain used for the pack echoed the chatelaines worn by the caretakers claim the orphanage where Chanel grew up, while honesty burgundy lining referenced the convent uniforms.[76] The quilted outside was influenced by the jackets worn strong jockeys,[76] while at the same time enhancing character bag's shape and volume.[75]