Coco chanel photos biography
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The true story of Coco Chanel's childhood: In search of Gabrielle
Features correspondent
The butcher was the only place in the Auvergne by of Courpière that showed any signs of life when inom visited on an August afternoon. A handful of half-timbered houses and shuttered windows, this sleepy little place was allegedly once home to one of the world's most famous fashion designers: Coco, née Gabrielle, Chanel. Tracking down anything concrete was proving difficult, however, and records of her early life were no more substantial than a whiff of her No. 5 in the breeze.
The lack of clarity about where Chanel came from doesn't stop people thinking they know who she was. Part of this is due to media misrepresentation. Feuds with rival designers (thanks to the Broadway musical, Coco, starring Katharine Hepburn). Rumours that her older sister Julia took her own life, and that Julia's son André was in fact Coco Chanel's il
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So great is Coco Chanel's legacy that fans make pilgrimages to her Paris apartment (although she also lived in the Paris Ritz for 30 years), which is preserved as she left it and endlessly referenced for style - as is every image of her and every tiny thing she ever designed. From her use of monochrome to her oversized 'costume' pearls and cuffs, everything is still sublimely, continuously referenced. As she herself once said: "Fashion fades, only style remains the same."
• Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was born in and died in • She created a new look for women in the 20th century, creating clothes that were primarily comfortable. A Chanel suit of or handbag is still seen as a landmark purchase for women of increasingly younger ages • The Chanel No.5 scent is the best selling in the world • The interlocking Cs of Coco Chanel remain one of the ultimate brand insignia • Since , Chanel has been designed by Karl Lagerfeld • The building where her ap
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It would have been particularly easy for Chanel to lose herself in parties after the breakdown of her relationship with Boy Capel - in he married Diana Wyndham, a daughter of Lord Ribblesdale - and then his death, in a car accident, in December 'His death was a terrible blow to me,' she said later. 'I lost everything when I lost Capel He left a void in me that the years have not filled.' Yet Chanel busied herself with work and, after several months in mourning and then a trip to Italy with Misia and her husband, she returned to Paris ready to live again. Following an affair with Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich - who introduced her, in , to Ernest Beaux, the man who helped her create Chanel No. 5 - she embarked on a long relationship with the 2nd Duke of Westminster.
The designer met Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor in Monte Carlo, after an introduction by Chanel's friend and public-relations adviser, the socialite Vera Bate. Although Chanel was rich in her own rig