Coco Chanel

She was romantically involved with French ex-cavalry officer Etienne Balsan and became his mistress at the age of 23. She was showered and pampered by his riches in the form of diamonds, pearls and dresses.

Chanel’s personal life was full of controversies. According to a biography ‘Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life’ Andr� Palasse, supposedly the only child of her sister Julia-Berthe who had committed suicide, was actually Chanel's child by Balsan.

Later in 1908, Chanel had an affair with Balsan’s friend Captain Arthur Edward Boy Capel.

Chanel was born on 19 August 1883 to an unwed mother Eug�nie Jeanne Devolle. She did not have a great childhood and grew up with poverty surrounding her. Her mother Eug�nie Jeanne Devolle was a laundry woman in the Charity hospital run by the Sisters of Providence in Saumur, France.

Chanel’s father Albert Chanel was a rambling street vendor who peddled work clothes and undergarments for a living.

When Chanel was 12, she lost her mother to bronchitis and her father put Chanel and other daughters to the convent of Aubazine in Central France. Chanel had a tough time in Aubazine, as it was a demanding place, and thus she fled from there to boarding house for Catholic girls in the town of Moulins.

Although Chanel did not have a pleasant stay at Aubazine, it did do a little good to her eventually. She did a lot of sewing sewing in the six years that she stayed in Aubazine which earned her a job as a seamstress.

In her free time, she used to sing in cabaret frequented by cavalry officers. During this time she made her stage debut singing at a caf� concert in a Moulins pavilion, La Rotonde and she acquired the name ‘Coco’, because of the two songs she sang which she became identified, "Ko Ko Ri Ko", and "Qui qu'a vu Coco", or it was an allusion to the French word for kept woman, cocotte.

In 1906, she went to the spa resort town of Vichy and tried her best to become a stage performer but soon realized that a stage career was not her cup of tea and thus she returned to Moulins.

It was Captain Arthur Edward Capel, her love affair, who was instrumental in helping Chanel set-up her first shop. Capel, himself being a well-dressed man influenced the conception of the Chanel look.

The design of Chanel’s signature scent ‘Chanel 5’ drew inspiration from knick-knacks carried by Capel. It was either the rectangular, bevelled lines of the Charvet toiletry bottles Capel carried in his leather traveling case or the exquisite design of the whiskey decanter.

Chanel’s signature scent ‘Chanel 5’ is an iconic product in the perfume world and is fancied by most big celebrities and also common people.

The legendary concept of the little black dress is often cited as a Chanel’s contribution to the fashion lexicon. This became Chanel’s fashion trademark.

The iconic Chanel bag, also known as ‘2.55’, name after the date of the bag’s creation (February 1955) made bag more of a style statement and a luxurious product apart from it being a necessity for women.

The famous ‘Chanel suit’ specially tailored for women encouraged women to pursue their professional goals in style.