Coco Chanel: The woman who lived "fashion"

The other day when I was sitting with an article on the top 10 entrepreneurs of the world who never went to school, I came across this one name which made me pause for a while. The name which, to be very frank, even I was unaware of before. Chanel has been a brand all women interested in fashion crave for sometime in their lives. After all, it has been one of the pioneers in the fashion market for over the years. But, who was behind this success anyway? Who had thought of revolutionizing the "Corset" era of fashion with "collarless jackets and well fitted skirts"? Coco Chanel is the name!


This woman had thought of something so big that even today, when she has been gone forever, her fragrance

is still lingering around. She always believed that "A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future" and it is perhaps because of this thinking that led her to give her name to perfumes in an era when doing something like this was unimaginable. But what makes me adore her is her positive attitude towards life. No matter what happened in her past, she had always kept it aside and moved forward. This is why probably she was the only woman in my top 10 list.

Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born on August 19,1883 in Saumur, France. Right from childhood, she has had to endure a lot of difficulties in her life, especially after her mother's death. Her father who was a local peddler had sent her to an orphanage where she spent the early days of her childhood. She might not have had the opportunity to visit school but the nuns did teach her something which made her what she is today: Sewing. As a seamstress, she always tried to put her imaginations of design into her works. At the age of 20,  she started her career in a millinery business with Ethienne Balson in Paris. But after a while she left him for his even wealthier friend Arthur 'Boy' Capel. This brought about a complete turnover to her business.




During her early years, she was also famous as a club singer in Vichy and Moulins from where she received her title "Coco". Many say that it's a name given to her for a song that she used to sing very often whereas she herself said that it was a shortened version of the French word "cocotte" meaning "kept woman" (according to an article in The Atlantic).

She had opened her first hat shop in Paris's Rue Cambon in 1910 which later expanded to Deauville and Biarritz. Her first clothing success came from her "old jersey dress" which she had worn on a chilly day. Women started appreciating her design and she started getting orders.With her Chanel suit having a collarless jacket and a well-fitted skirt, she wanted to emphasize comfort over constraints in her time when women were bound in corsets and other confined garments. She believed that if men could wear loose clothes, women also can!

Chanel loved perfumes. Chanel No. 5, her first perfume, was a result of this passion for fragrance that she had. She often said "Perfume is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure."

The most popular design which is still the "one must have" for every woman today is her Little Black Dress (LBD). With her LBDs, Chanel wanted to show the world that the color of mourning could be so chic as an evening wear!

But every business has its' hard times. Even she did. The international economic depression of the 1930s had a negative impact on her company which was heightened by the World War 2 that eventually led Chanel to shut down her business. This did not last long. At the age of 70, she made a magnificent comeback once again!

Chanel died on January 10, 1971 at her apartment in Hotel Ritz. But her designs are still ruling the market every year today! She was and will forever be an example to all the women in this world who feel that there is no life without education!

"Since everything is in our hands, we better not lose them."~Coco Chanel