Coco Chanel

Gabriel Bonheur Chanel (Coco) was born in 1883. When her mother died Coco was only twelve years old. Her father abandons her and her siblings dans the largest orphelinat of the region, a convent à Aubazine. She started working à Moulins-as-a-shop girl with a local milliner and the age of twenty-five , she met and started living with her first love, Ettiene Balsan. Coco décollage décoration simple straw and felt hats and created beautiful and unusual dessins, captivating the attention and admiration of the women that attended the horse races. Soon after, they began to ask her to custom-design hats that would complement their après-midi tenues. Entre 1912 and 1914 Coco opens a millinery store “Chanel Modes", à Paris, and another à Deauville, where she makes and sells hats, simple loose and blouses chemises. She has the financial backing of “Boy” Capel, her lover after Balsan, oms endorsed her plans and encouraged her ideas. En 1916, Coco begins to make garments from jersey, a fabric previously used only for underwear. Chanel made and sold hats, simple loose blouses et chemises. Her clothes were designed to be worn without corsets and were constructed with fewer linings to make them lighter and less rigide. En 1918, Chanel ce qui de production des cardigans and twin sets. She adapted men's pulls and showed worn them over plain, straight skirts. En 1920, Chanel introduced wide-pattes trousers for women, based on sailor bell bottoms, which she called "yachting pantalon." She also popularisé the "little black dress," during this time. Chanel porté ces her design which she adapted from traditional menswear: belted raincoats, plain opened-neck shirts, blazers, cardigans, trousers and soft de l'armée. Her collarless cardigan-gilet were braid-trimmed, accessoirisé with patch pockets, and worn with knee-length tweed skirts. Her simple chemise robes had round straight or bateau necklines, hung assez librement to the mid or lower calf and were worn with waist or du hip-length belts. Her other innovation of this period included oversize flat black bows, s'applique boutons on blazers, sling back sandals and handbags with s'applique chaînes. She introduced costume jewelry, incorporated and it in her overall tweed costume look worn with rows of artificial pearlsor s'applique chaînes. During the 1930s she commissioned Fulco Di Verdura to design élaborer costume jewelry using fake and semi-precious stones dans ostentatious settings. Coco donc lancé her perfume Chanel N ° 5 in the 1920s. Chanel s signature style culminated autour de 1923 dans what commentators called the “garconne look," which celebrated the flat torse, slender, wearing loose, comfortable clothes and sporting a short, boyish décote figure. En 1929, Coco opened a boutique dans Paris salon to sell accessories, such as sacs, ceintures, scarves and jewelry. She closed her salon en 1939, at the outbreak of World war II, 1954, at the age of soixante-dix-one, she made her retour, reopening her house after fifteen years, and introducing a collection which featured the neat suits that had been her hallmark before the war. She continued her reign over couture from 1954 to 1971, when she died at the age of eighty-eight. Since 1983, Karl Lagerfeld, c'est has been, directeur du design of the House of Chanel.