Today we are going to talk about a world-famous legend, and her name is Coco Chanel .
I think you cannot disagree with me that every sphere of life has its own famous representatives (though many of them achieved their fame without hard work or talent), but there are also idols, whose level of fame and popularity cannot be so easily achieved.
For example, there is a famous singer Iosif Kobzon who is well-known for his wig (which is practically nailed to his head), his face (which is the victim of hundreds of plastic surgeries) and his silly, pointless sayings.
On the contrary, another famous singer Fedor Shaliapin had become a living legend because of his talent.
All football fans know Artem Milevskyi, who seemed to be a very promising footballer when he played for the youth team of Ukraine, but who became famous only for his endless binges and racing on the expensive cars.
On the contrary, there is also Pele whose name is well-known even to people who don’t have a clue how a football looks like.
Fashion industry gave us a famous misogynist Andre Tan, who clothed female members of our national team in shapeless garments, but fortunately, it also gave us Coco Chanel , the legend of fashion industry, whose achievements and popularity in the fashion world had not been surpassed yet.
Thus, let’s talk about this fashion legend.
Coco Chanel: early steps to popularity
The girl, who was born on August 19, 1883 in the French town of Saumur, was given a name Gabriel.
Later, when she changed her name to Coco and became famous, Gabriel would say that she was 10 years younger and was born in 1893.
The childhood of the future celebrity couldn’t be called happy: she lost her mother at twelve, and then her father left their family. Gabriel and her four little siblings were left alone. Gabriel was sent to one orphanage after another, and thus she became mature very soon.
At 18 she got her first position of the shop-assistant at the underwear store. Dreaming about a huge fame, Gabriel started performing at the cabaret.
She has not become successful as a cabaret singer, because she possessed neither singing nor dancing skills.
However, this part of her life gave Gabriel two presents: first of all, she acquired the name Coco (from some of the songs she sang) and the affair with a wealthy officer Étienne Balsan, who helped her to forget about poverty.
Unfortunately, Étienne didn’t support Gabriel’s dreams about fashion. Thus, the young lady found another man who shared her sacred desires, and his name was Arthur Capel. He helped Coco to open her first boutique of hats in 1910.
The talented fashion designer quickly attracted wealthy customers.
Moreover, she entered their circle as their equal. Nobody treated her as a milliner or service staff. She was considered to be a star and everybody wanted to meet her.
During next decades, up till the beginning of World War II, Chanel’s fame and income had been growing up very quickly.
Name of Coco Chanel is synonym to success in fashion industry
Everything had changed when the war began.Coco had to close down her shop because Paris was occupied by the fascists.
Apart from this, Chanel’s nephew was held captive and she decided to have an affair with a German officer in order to free him.
When the war ended, Chanel was blamed for her connection with occupation regime.
In 1953 Coco Chanel ventured to open a new shop in Paris, but came to grief when she presented her first collection to the public.
Fortunately, Coco didn’t give up and ignored the narrow-minded critics. Instead, she concentrated on her work and managed to climb the fashion Olympus in only three years!
Coco Chanel presented her clients with one masterpiece after another. Fashionable women followed her recommendations thoroughly and copied the style of Mademoiselle Chanel, while her colleagues envied her and lived in the shadow of Coco.
The favorite of muses died in 1971 from heart attack at the age of 87. She was buried at the cemetery of Lausanne in Switzerland.
5 main presents to fashion girls from Coco Chanel
Little black dress.
Coco Chanel proved that you don’t necessarily have to own a huge wardrobe or rush home in order to change your clothes for an evening party.
She created the all-purpose attire – little black dress.
Depending on the accessories it can either be a business suit or an evening dress.
Up till now tweed suits (lace-trimmed suits without a collar and with a tight skirt) remain the trademark of “The House of Chanel”. Every should have them in her wardrobe.
Handbags with chain straps.
Coco used to complain about constantly losing her tiny handbag because it hampered her.
Later she created a small handbag with a chain strap which could be carried on the shoulder.
“Chanel No. 5” perfumes.
It was Coco together with an emigrant from Russia, Ernest Beaux, who presented a complicated synthesized perfume and its fragrance was not like anything known before.
Coco Chanel freed women from the necessity to wear long hair and make complicated hairstyles on their heads.
Witty tips to the future generation from Coco Chanel
As a matter of fact, Coco Chanel created so many aphorisms that they could be published as a separate book of quotes. However, I think that top-10 of them can be listed here, and they are:
- “Fashion is always of the time you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. Then they feel more joyous”.
- “Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.”
- “Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve”.
- “There is time for work, and time for love. That leaves no other time.”
- “A woman can be overdressed but never over elegant”.
- “Keep your heels, head and standards high”.
- “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different”.
- “Coquetry, it’s a triumph of the spirit over the senses.”
- “Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants”.
- “Success is most achieved by those who think that failure is inevitable”.
Coco Chanel was not only the legend of the fashion world, who gave women a huge variety of basic pieces of clothes which will never become old-fashioned, she was also a successful business lady and an unbelievably wise woman.
A real legend, you know!
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Coco Chanel (19.08.1883 – 10.01.1971) - French fashion designer.
Coco Chanel (Gabrielle Bonheur) was a prominent French designer of clothes. She was born on August the 19th, 1883 in Saumur. Her mother died when she was hardly twelve. Her father didn’t want to take responsibility for five children and they were sent to the shelter for the poor. When Gabrielle was 18, she got a job of a shop-assistant at one clothing store. She spent her free time singing in cabarets. The song she often sang was called “Qui qu"a vu Coco”, which is why people started calling her Coco. Although she didn’t become a successful singer, she was noticed by one of the wealthy retired officers - Etienne Balsan.
He was fascinated by her performances and invited her to live in his Parisian house. At first, she liked living in a new, richly decorated house. However, it was difficult for her to get used to the status of a mistress. She spent years trying to understand what she actually wanted in life. Soon, she told Balsan that she wanted to become a milliner, but he only laughed at her idea. He said that there were so many milliners in Paris and Coco didn’t even have experience. Later, another man appeared in her life. It was Balsan’s English friend - Arthur Capel, also known as “Boy”. Since then, her life had radically changed. Arthur was a successful businessman with excellent entrepreneurial skills. He encouraged Coco to develop her idea and helped her to open her first store of ladies’ hats in Paris in 1910.
Three years later she opened a boutique in Deauville. From now on, she was a real businesswoman. Nothing could stop her neither the lack of experience, nor the First World War. She was an entrepreneur and a designer at the same time, creating her own elegant style. She became quickly recognizable among the famous ladies of Paris. Chanel became the first tailor who was the part of high society. She completely changed public opinion on designer’s labor. After the announcement of the Second World War, she closed all her showrooms as she understood that it was the wrong time for fashion. In 1944, she was arrested for a while because of the rumors about her affair with a German officer. After that she moved to Switzerland where she spent the next ten years.
Chanel’s glory was gradually disappearing, as the post-war fashion was mainly in the hands of Balenciaga and Dior houses. However, in 1953 she re-opened her salon in Paris and a year later she established her own fashion house. There was lots of criticizing in local newspapers, but she ignored them. All she needed was three years to restore her fame. Thus, a 70-year-old woman again changed the whole idea of fashion, making her style dominant. The great milliner died in 1971 at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Her style is still considered to be the most elegant in the history of fashion.
В разделе на вопрос У кого-нибудь есть биография любого очень-очень известного(типа Коко Шанель)дизайнера на английском языке? заданный автором Женя Быченкова лучший ответ это Coco ChanelFashion DesignerName at birth: Gabrielle Bonheur ChanelDesigner Coco Chanel gave the world the little black dress, Chanel No. 5 perfume, and a casually classic notion of style that influenced women"s clothes throughout the 20th century. Coco -- a nickname meaning "little pet" -- was raised in an orphanage, where she learned to sew. In 1910 she began selling hats from her own shop, and by the 1920s her fashion business had expanded to include a couture house, her own textile factory and a line of perfumes that included the famous No. 5. Chanel took women"s fashions away from corseted styles and introduced casual, practical clothing that borrowed fabrics and attitudes from men"s fashion. She was the first to introduce black as a fashion color; her versatile, semi-formal "little black dress" became a Chanel trademark and an enduring fashion standard. During and after World War II Chanel"s popularity waned, and her love affair with a Nazi officer kept her in a form of self-imposed exile in Switzerland for more than a decade. She made a comeback in 1954 and her designs became some of the most popular in the western world, especially in the United States. Since her death the Coco Chanel Company has been under the direction of designer Karl Lagerfeld.или надо еще кого? пиши на почтовый ящик
She was one of the most remarkable women of the 20th Century, but Coco Chanel"s reputation is again under scrutiny over allegations that she was a Nazi agent in World War II France.
Она была одной из самых замечательных женщин 20-го столетия, но репутация Коко Шанель вновь под вопросом: утверждают, что она была агентом нацистов во Франции в период второй мировой войны.
To millions of people around the globe Chanel stands for style, opulence and understated elegance, from haute couture worn by the few to ready-to-wear treasured by the masses. Her achievements are undeniable. Chanel"s instantly recognisable suits have been sported by stylistas from the Duchess of Windsor to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
Для миллионов людей по всему земному шару Шанель - это стиль, роскошь и сдержанная элегантность, будь то платья от кутюр или массовый пошив. Её достижения неоспоримы. Мгновенно узнаваемые костюмы от Шанель взяли на вооружение все стилисты от герцогини Виндзорской до Карлы Бруни-Саркози.
Jackie Kennedy was wearing a pink version when JFK was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
На Джеки Кеннеди был такой розовый костюм, когда рядом с ней убили мужа (президента Кеннеди) в Далласе в 1963 г.
And, the "little black dress", that byword for elegant simplicity has regularly topped polls for the most iconic of all items of clothing.
А "маленькое чёрное платье", ставшее синонимом элегантной простоты, регулярно побеждает в опросах как "икона стиля" в одежде.
But there is another side to the story of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, and it concerns her actions in occupied France during World War II.
Но есть и другая сторона жизни Габриель "Коко" Шанель. Она касается её деятельности в оккупированной Франции в период второй мировой войны.
Like many luminaries, including the singers Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier, the writer Jean Cocteau and the late president Francois Mitterrand, Chanel remained in her native country following its occupation by German forces in the summer of 1940.
Как многие знаменитости, включая певицу Эдит Пиаф, певца Мориса Шевалье, писателя Жана Кокто и покойного президента Миттерана, Шанель осталась в родной стране после её оккупации немецкими войсками летом 1940 года.
And since the war"s end, rumours have abounded about the real nature of her association with the Nazis.
Когда война закончилась, было много слухов о характере её связей с нацистами.
Now according to Hal Vaughan, author of the new book, Sleeping with the Enemy, Chanel is revealed as having actually worked for German military intelligence during the war.
Being a Nazi agent was "part of her daily life" in Paris during the occupation, he says.
Он говорит, что работа нацистским агентом была частью её жизни в оккупированном Париже.
"Chanel was a consummate opportunist. The Nazis were in power, and Chanel gravitated to power. It was the story of her life.
"Шанель была в высшей степени оппортунисткой. Нацисты были у власти, а Шанель тянулась к власти. Причём всю жизнь.
Chanel didn"t believe in anything, except fashion. Chanel believed in beautiful clothes, she believed in her business and rightly so; she didn"t care about Hitler or politics or Nazism."
Шанель не верила ни во что, кроме моды. Она верила в прекрасную одежду, в свой бизнес (и не без основания); ей был безразличен Гитлер или политика, или нацизм."
Ensconced in the luxury of the Hotel Ritz, a privilege permitted to few non-Germans, Chanel, who had closed her shops in France at the outbreak of war, was in constant contact with the country"s new Nazi overlords.
Живущая в роскоши в отеле Ритц - а эту привилегию имели почти исключительно немцы - Шанель, которая с началом войны закрыла свои магазины во Франции, поддерживала постоянный контакт с новыми нацистскими хозяевами страны.
Key to the new allegations is her affair with the dashing 44-year-old German officer Baron Hans Guenther von Dincklage who, Vaughan says, "has been treated by every biographer as a kind of playboy tennis man".
Обвинения против неё основаны на любовном романе с бравым 44-летним немецким офицером бароном Г.Г. фон Динклаге, который, по словам Воэна, "всеми биографами описывается как теннисист-плейбой".
He wasn"t. He was a professional Abwehr officer, who had been operating in France since the late 1920s.
Плейбоем он не был. Это был профессиональный офицер абвера (немецкая военная разведка), работавший во Франции ещё с 1920-х годов.
"He manipulated Chanel, and Chanel manipulated him."
"Он манипулировал Шанель, а Шанель манипулировала им."
It was von Dincklage who arranged the 57-year-old Chanel"s stay in the Ritz and who managed her business relations with the occupation authorities.
Именно фон Динклаге устроил для 57-летней Шанель проживание в отеле Ритц и ведал её деловыми отношениями с оккупационными властями.
In return, Vaughan says, the Abwehr signed Chanel up as Agent F-7124, codenamed "Westminster" after a former lover, the second duke.
А за это, по словам Воэна, Шанель стала агентом абвера F-7124 под кличкой "Вестминстер" в честь её бывшего любовника (второго герцога Вестминстерского).
In a gavotte-like relationship, the feisty Chanel manoeuvred for the release of her nephew, Andre Palasse, from a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.
В этой замысловатой игре упрямая Шанель добивалась освобождения своего племянника Андре Палассе из лагеря военнопленных в Германии.
Beyond this, the Abwehr dangled before her the enticing prospect of taking control of the highly profitable Chanel perfume business, which she had licensed to the Jewish Wertheimer brothers in 1924.
Кроме того, абвер манил её перспективой вернуть очень прибыльный парфюмерный бизнес Шанель, лицензию на который она продала в 1924 году братьям Вертхаймерам, евреям.
Indeed, she did make a claim to the company under Nazi "Aryanisation" laws, not realising that the Wertheimers, by then safely in the United States, had handed control of the firm to a Christian.
И действительно, она заявила претензии на эту компанию по нацистским законам об "арианизации", не зная о том, что братья Вертхаймеры (к тому времени проживавшие в США) передали управление фирмой человеку христианского вероисповедания.
Murky motives Неясные мотивы
While agreeing that Vaughan"s book adds some new detail to Chanel"s war years, the writer Justine Picardie, whose biography, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, was published last year, believes that Chanel"s motives were "a bit more subtle and nuanced".
Соглашаясь с тем, что книга Воэна содержит новые детали военных лет Шанель, писательница Юстин Пикарди, автор биографии "Коко Шанель: легенда и жизнь", опубликованной в прошлом году, считает, что мотивы Шанель имели "тонкие нюансы".
"Everything she did was a paradox. She was so contradictory. On the one hand, she did make anti-Semitic remarks. But then some of her best clients were Jewish, like the Rothschilds, and indeed her business partner was Jewish, and he continued to be her business partner after the war."
"Всё, что она делала - это парадокс. Она была противоречивой личностью. С одной стороны, она допускала антисемитские замечания. Но с другой, среди её лучших клиентов были евреи, например Ротшильды, и её партнёр по бизнесу был евреем, и остался партнёром после войны".
But what did Chanel really do as an agent? Well, after having been promised that her nephew would be released, it seems that she travelled to Madrid in August 1941 with the special dispensation of the Germans, in order to use her contacts to gain political intelligence.
Что же Шанель на самом деле сделала в качестве агента? Получив обещание, что её племянник будет освобождён, она, по-видимому, уехала в Мадрид в августе 1941 года по указанию немцев, чтобы использовать свои контакты для политической разведки.
According to a document cited by Vaughan, though, this visit only saw her exchanging banalities with a British diplomat who reported that: "the Germans cannot understand the French and this is making them hate them to the point that she, Mlle Chanel, is afraid of what will happen."
Однако Воэн ссылается на документ, из которого видно, что дело не пошло дальше банальных бесед с британским дипломатом, который о них докладывал так: "Немцы совершенно не могут понять французов и начинают их ненавидеть настолько, что мадемуазель Шанель страшится за последствия".
Vaughan readily accepts that Chanel was never a spy. "Espionage - you take photographs, you take documents. Chanel never did that," he says.
Воэн готов согласиться, что Шанель никогда не была шпионкой. "Шпионаж - это фотографии, документы. Шанель этим никогда не занималась", - говорит он.
"She was a facilitator. She knew everybody in Spain, she knew everybody in England, and she helped out the Nazis." At the war"s end Chanel, who fled to Switzerland, was spared from being tried as a collaborator. Vaughan says due to Churchill"s intervention, others say because of the British royal family.
"Она была пособницей. Она всех знала в Испании, в Англии и помогала нацистам". В конце войны Шанель бежала в Швейцарию, избежала суда за сотрудничество с немцами. По словам Воэна, из-за вмешательства Черчилля. Другие считают, что благодаря британской королевской семье.
Returning to Paris in 1954, her re-establishment in the couture business was financed by none other than Pierre Wertheimer, one of the men she had sought to dispossess during the war.
После возвращения в Париж в 1954 году она воссоздала свой бизнес с финансовой помощью не кого иного, как Пьера Вертхаймера, которого она пыталась лишить бизнеса во время войны.
Coco Chanel died, aged 87 in January 1971, appropriately enough in her wartime home, the Hotel Ritz in Paris.
Коко Шанель умерла в январе 1971 года в возрасте 87 лет - где бы вы думали? - всё в том же отеле Ритц, где жила во время войны.
War and conflict always reveals the survival instinct. Coco Chanel, who had risen from a Catholic orphanage to become the mistress of all she surveyed, was a born survivor.
Война и конфликты всегда обостряют инстинкт самосохранения. Коко Шанель, выросшая в католическом сиротском приюте и ставшая хозяйкой всего, на что падал её цепкий взгляд, была рождена, чтобы выжить.
Примечание: интересны цитаты Коко Шанель , которые можно найти среди статей на английском на нашем сайте.
Fashion designer. Born 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.
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. She took a color once associated with mourning and showed just how chic it could be for eveningwear. In addition to fashion, Chanel was a popular figure in the Paris literary and artistic worlds. She designed costumes for the Ballets Russes and for Jean Cocteau’s play Orphée, and counted Cocteau and artist Pablo Picasso among her friends. For a time, Chanel had a relationship with composer Igor Stravinsky.
Another important romance for Chanel began in the 1920s. 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 company, but it was the outbreak of World War II that led Chanel to close her business. She fired her workers and shut down her shops.
