Who is Gabrielle Bonheur Coco Chanel and why is she an icon?

Everything you need to know about the french fashion designer Gabrielle Bonheur ‘Coco’ Chanel

The word Chanel is synonymous with timeless chic and classic style and Coco Chanel is a fashion icon that reigns over all other icons of the industry. The global business that she built, still today, infiltrates cultures around the world, dictating lifestyle, fashion imagery and identity like no other.

She is the only fashion designer in The Times Magazine’s top 100 influential people of the 20th century. Her story is truly remarkable, not only for her seismic journey of rags to riches, but also for her influence amongst the societal hierarchy of her time, and indeed today. She left a lasting legacy not only of style but her philosophy on the lifestyle that empowered women to assume an identity with confidence and conviction. 

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History of Coco Chanel

Born on the 19th of August 1883 in Saumur in Western France, Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was officially her name, but later she took the name ‘Coco’ whilst singing in Cabaret for the military in the Moulin region. At just 11 years old, her mother died and she grew up in a religious orphanage and then a catholic boarding school for girls where her skills for sewing were cultivated along with a strict sense of self-discipline.

It was here that she met ex-calvary officer and textile heir Etienne Balsan who lavished her with fine jewels and dresses whilst she lived in his chateaux. Her life would never be the same again. It was then that she began designing hats and experienced success as a millenary, opening a shop in Rue de Cambon in Paris in 1913.

Chanel then proceeded to have an affair with Balsan’s friend Arthur Capel who financed her first shop in Deauville in 1913 and soon in 1915, her second shop was opened in Biarritz. By 1927 she owned 5 buildings in Rue de Cambon in Paris, mingling with the elite and politicians. She had relationships with some of the most influential men of her time -some would prove controversial.

Coco Chanel’s rise in the fashion world in the 1920s rang a death knoll to all the confinement of the corseted silhouettes of previous decades. Her success also ended much of the frill and fuss of previous clothing. This was to make way for a more youthful, liberating style that was sporty and unencumbered.  More androgynous in style, yet elegant, her collections would go some way to elevating women alongside their male counterparts in society as women were starting to enter the workplace in larger numbers.

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Her own excursions on the water in the Yachting world inspired her appropriation of nautical clothing. Horizontal stripes, bell-bottom pants, crew neck sweaters and espadrille shoes are all traditionally worn by fishermen and sailors. Chanel’s style in the 20s was boyish and comfortable, which worked well in an age of the loose-fitting dresses of the flapper girls.

Even in her early years as a designer, she encouraged women to embrace a stronger social standing. A fiercely strong woman herself with a lethal sense of wit and sarcasm she urged women to take on her new boyish style, cutting her own hair short. Many of her quotes are now immortalised and show women with grit and great foresight. She offered sartorial words to live by.

‘A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life.’

Coco Chanel

She knew how fashion can be used as a symbol of empowerment for women, famously saying: ‘If you’re sad add more lipstick and attack.’ Having learnt to survive such humble routes she knew that there is no such thing as free handouts and that we are all painters of our own destinies. Chanel not only created her life, but she also created a whole range of products that became iconic pieces worldwide, still selling in the millions today.

In 1926 Chanel’s little black dress was heralded by Vogue as a ‘simple, chic item’ that would become a wardrobe staple for ‘women of taste’. A classic piece that Chanel herself boasted would allow the non-wealthy to ‘walk around like millionaires’.  A genius creation of a ‘less is more’  ethos which embeds French Fashion culture even today. But it was not so enthusiastically embraced by her male counterparts in the early 1920s who preferred the more curvy female silhouettes of previous decades. 

Chanel eventually produced a variety of little black dresses in varied affordable fabrics such as jersey and wool and aimed them at the confident working woman – it is still a core item in every woman’s wardrobe a hundred years later.

Chanel’s drive for democratising fashion extended to jewellery. She designed Fashion jewellery, born out of her love of exquisite fine diamonds and pearls that her male lovers lavished upon her. Her collections were affordable ostentatious pieces which became desirable even amongst the wealthy who chose to wear her creations publicly whilst safeguarding their more fine bijoux.

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The Chanel bag is yet another iconic piece that is still being sold globally today. Inspired, by the bags of soldiers it is again practical like her loose fashion pieces. The chain strap allowing the hands to be free is said to have been inspired by the chains worn by the convent caretakers where she was raised. 

But it was Chanel’s perfume, No 5, that she is most famous for globally, offering consumers a slice of luxury. Its allure has amassed a multi-billion dollar empire. 

Initially, this was a collaboration with a French-Russian perfumer, Earnest Beaux who created numbered vials of exquisite smells for Chanel and she chose no 5, her lucky number. It was launched on the 5th of May 1921 and a perfume brand of phenomenal success was born.

First distributed and marketed by the Wertheimer brothers and sold in Galleries Lafayette in Paris, Chanel, herself, was only left with a 10% share of the perfume profits.  The little glass bottle, however, went on to grace the dressing tables of millions of women. Unfortunately, this became a business deal that she would later regret, spending 20 years fighting her case for a more equal share of the arrangement.  

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Who would have known that a little bottle of perfume would become such a symbol of hierarchical status, style and confidence? The embodiment of Chanel herself. It was even immortalised by Andy Warhol’s silkscreen pop art in 1985 and sits alongside his other homages to world icons.

Chanel will go down in history as a Fashion phenomenon who was unapologetic about her views and vision of the world and she was not without controversy in her opinions, and who she aligned herself with to attain success. But it was her clear understanding of how the role of fashion can play a major part in the world that drove her to create a global brand people still crave.

The allure of her iconic style has created an empire that reshaped the fashion world and the identity of women across nations and how they see themselves in society. Her desire to democratise and revolutionise the way women dress and indeed smell has become everlasting. Coco Chanel continued to design up until her death in 1971 at the age of 87, in the Ritz Hotel, in Paris.

Author: Vicky Hatia