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Quick Facts
- NAME: Coco Chanel
- OCCUPATION: Fashion Designer
- BIRTH DATE: August 19, 1883
- DEATH DATE: January 10, 1971
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Saumur, France
- PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France
- AKA: Gabrielle Chanel
Best Known For
With her trademark suits and little black dresses, fashion designer Coco Chanel created timeless designs that are still popular today.
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Coco Chanel - Mini Biography
A short biography of Coco Chanel who's famous for her timeless designs, trademark suits, and creating the "little black dress."
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Play NowCoco Chanel. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 03:49, May 25, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/coco-chanel-9244165.
Coco Chanel. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/coco-chanel-9244165 [Accessed 25 May 2013].
"Coco Chanel." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 25 2013, 03:49 http://www.biography.com/people/coco-chanel-9244165.
"Coco Chanel," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/coco-chanel-9244165 [accessed May 25, 2013].
"Coco Chanel," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/coco-chanel-9244165 (accessed May 25, 2013).
Coco Chanel [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 25] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/coco-chanel-9244165.
Coco Chanel, http://www.biography.com/people/coco-chanel-9244165 (last visited May 25, 2013).
Coco Chanel. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/coco-chanel-9244165. Accessed May 25, 2013.
Synopsis
Fashion designer Coco Chanel, born August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France, is famous for her timeless designs, trademark suits, and little black dresses. Chanel was raised in an orphanages and taught to sew. She had a brief career as a singer before opening her first clothes shop in 1910. In the 1920s, she launched her first perfume and introduced the Chanel suit and the little black dress.
Quotes
"A woman has the age she deserves."
Nature gives you the face you have at 20; it is up to you to merit the face you have at 50.
Early Life
Famed fashion designer Coco Chanel was born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel on August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France. With her trademark suits and little black dresses, Coco Chanel created timeless designs that are still popular today. She herself became a much revered style icon known for her simple yet sophisticated outfits paired with great accessories, such as several strands of pearls. As Chanel once said,“luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.”
Her early years, however, were anything but glamorous. After her mother’s death, Chanel was put in an orphanage by her father who worked as a peddler. She was raised by nuns who taught her how to sew—a skill that would lead to her life’s work. Her nickname came from another occupation entirely. During her brief career as a singer, Chanel performed in clubs in Vichy and Moulins where she was called “Coco.” Some say that the name comes from one of the songs she used to sing, and Chanel herself said that it was a “shortened version of cocotte, the French word for ‘kept woman,” according to an article in The Atlantic.
Fashion Pioneer
Around the age of 20, Chanel became involved with Etienne Balsan who offered to help her start a millinery business in Paris. She soon left him for one of his even wealthier friends, Arthur “Boy” Capel. Both men were instrumental in Chanel’s first fashion venture.
Opening her first shop on Paris’s Rue Cambon in 1910, Chanel started out selling hats. She later added stores in Deauville and Biarritz and began making clothes. Her first taste of clothing success came from a dress she fashioned out of an old jersey on a chilly day. In response to the many people who asked about where she got the dress, she offered to make one for them. “My fortune is built on that old jersey that I’d put on because it was cold in Deauville,” she once told author Paul Morand.
In the 1920s, Chanel took her thriving business to new heights. She launched her first perfume, Chanel No. 5, which was the first to feature a designer’s name. Perfume “is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion. . . . that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure,” Chanel once explained.
In 1925, she introduced the now legendary Chanel suit with collarless jacket and well-fitted skirt. Her designs were revolutionary for the time—borrowing elements of men’s wear and emphasizing comfort over the constraints of then-popular fashions. She helped women say good-bye to the days of corsets and other confining garments.
Another 1920s revolutionary design was Chanel’s little black dress.
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