Coco Chanel

"A girl must be two things: classy and fabulous"

Coco Chanel was a haute couture revolutionary, she changed the way women dressed in the 1920s and again in the early 1960s. She is a very important character in the fashion world, responsible for decades of innovation. Coco spent her entire life building a fashion empire on her talent and intuition for what women wanted to wear. She left a monumental impact on the fashion industry.

Gabrielle Bonheur " Coco" Chanel was born on august 19th of 1883 in France. Her mother died when she was 12 and she stay with her father only. She had a hard life and then she was singer in cafes for a short period of time and there she got the nickname "Coco" by local soldiers that went to see her.   She started a relationship with a wealthy English Industrialist called Arthur Edward 'Boy' Capel for 9 years, until she married in 1918. In the year 1919 something terrible happened, Capel died in a car accident. 

While she was in a relationship with Capel she got her first boutiques in 1910. By he 1920s Maison Chanel was established in Paris, Chanel become an important style icon with her amazing haircut and her active personality.

Her designs were unique and they broke up with the normal pattern of designs that women usually wore. In 1922, she launched the fragrance Chanel #5, which is still popular in this days. Two years later, Pierre Wertheimer became her business partner and then her lover. The Wertheimers now a days control the perfume company.

In the year 1925, Coco created her signature cardigan jacket, and in the next year she continued with her success with the little black dress. After that both items continued to be part of every Chanel collection. During her life, Coco also designed costumes for the stage, like Cocteau's 'Antigone' in 1923 and 'Oedipus Rex'. In 1969 when the interwar period had already passed, a broadway musical of Coco's life was showed, As we can see she was still very popular at that time. Also there has been 3 films of this amazing woman, the first one was called "Chanel Solitarire" in 1981, then "Coco Chanel" in 2008 and finally in 2009 "Coco before Chanel".

She worked until her death, continuing with her particular style and unique personality; Coco rested in peace in January 10th, 1971. But after her death, since 1982 until today, Karl Lagerfeld become the new designer of Chanel's fashion house, he wanted to continue and show generation by generation what Coco Chanel brought to the fashion world.

I think that Coco Chanel was a woman with a lo of courage, she broke up with the common styles and just created her unique one; even thou she had a hard life and including the fact that in that period of time women weren't equal as men, she rouse up and succeed with her personal ideas. According to me she is an example because now a days we can see that people know about her, and it is a clear example of ho omen could succeed even they hadn't any support from the society.

Written by: Paula Guardia