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. She got her
nickname Coco from her brief career as a singerCoco became the mistress of Etienne Balsan, moved
into his Chateau where she lived for three years, this is where she began designing and creating
hats.Later she started a relationship with Arthur Edward ‘Boy’ Capel, he financed her living in Paris and
her first shop.She opened her first shop in Rue Cambon 1910, selling hats and later went on to design,
make and sell clothes.

• 1920 – Launched Chanel No.5, the first perfume to feature a designer’s name.

• 1925 – Introduction of the now legendary Chanel suit.

• 1926 – revolutionary design of the ‘Little Black Dress’

• She met the wealthy duke of Westminster aboard his yacht around 1923, and the two started a
decades-long relationship. In response to his marriage proposal, she reportedly said “There have
been several Duchesses of Westminster—but there is only one Chanel!”

The international economic depression of the 1930s had a negative impact on her companyThe outbreak
of World War II led Chanel to close her business.During the war Chanel was a nurse.Chanel got
involved with a German military officer, Hans Gunther von Dincklage and suffered in the publics
opinion over connected controversy.Consequently she spent several years in Switzerland.
1954 – Chanel returned to Paris, took on Christian Dior’s New Look, and expanded the signature style
by introducing the Pea jacket and Bell-bottoms for women.
1969 – Chanel’s fascinating life story became the basis for the Broadway musical Coco.

Coco Chanel died on January 10, 1971, at her apartment in the Hotel Ritz.She never married, having
once said “I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.”A little more than a decade after
her death, designer Karl Lagerfeld took the reins at her company to continue the Chanel legacy.

Her career started by making hats for her friends in 1909, licensed hat-maker and owned her first shop
in 1910.First hats made of straw, with wide brimsbig break French actress wore her hats on stage –
(Gabrielle Dorziat) .expanded again in 1913 to another boutique – casual clothing

Jersey dresses: alternative to the constricting corsets,visually appealing and comfortable,men’s

undergarment,low cost, draped well ,flattered the female body. vertical lines and trim to highlight a
woman’s shape. No. 5 perfume world’s bestselling perfumes everchanel - ”give women an artificial
perfume, yes, I really do mean artificial, like a dress, something that has been made. I don’t want any
rose or lily of the valley, I want a perfume that is a composition.”first perfumes ever to mix natural and
artificial essences.Production in 1922No 5 because - “I always launch my collection on the 5th day of
the 5th months, so the number 5 seems to bring me luck – therefore, I will name it Nº 5.”Today a bottle
of no 5 perfume is sold every 55seconds somewhere in the world!
In the times that Coco Chanel lived she had to be a strong and independent woman to Survive . She
quickly realized that she would need to have to make social connections with
the right people. Because of this she had to put an act on to create an ideal image of herself
So people would think that she was a higher class of person than she was. She didn't’ want
To be perceived as a orphan but as a actress. Or person of higher class than she was.
When questioned, Chanel would claim that when her mother died, her father sailed for America and
she was sent to live with two cold-hearted spinster aunts. She even claimed to have been born in 1893 as
opposed to 1883, and that her mother had died when Coco was six instead of 12. All this was done to
diminish the stigma that poverty, orphanhood, and illegitimacy bestowed upon unfortunates in 19th-
century France.
Men came back from World War I and wore the same clothes they had been wearing in the “teens”,
before the war. Pants were fairly straight-legged and there was a trend of military-inspired
jackets.Towards the middle of the decade, the style began to change, spear-headed by a trend that began
at Oxford University. Oxford Bags,
or extremely wide-legged pants, became fashionable for men first in an effort to by-pass a university
rule, and then became popular worldwide, drastically changing the image of fashion for men.