Chapter 5 Coco
Once upon a time…
There lived a little girl who hid her humble origins all her life
and preferred to invent her own legend.
Once upon a time…
Gabrielle Chanel was born under the sign of the lion
to a travelling peddler
and a laundress who died at 32, exhausted by life.
Once upon a time…
There was a father who abandoned his five children
and had his three daughters sent away to an orphanage.
At twelve years old, Gabrielle would never see him again.
Forever after, she pretended that he had left to make his way in America.
Once upon a time…
There was an orphanage behind the walls of a convent:
the Abbey of Aubazine, where Gabrielle spent nearly seven years.
The Romanesque purity of this ascetic world
would inspire her sense of austerity
and her taste for black and white,
while the opulence of religious garments and ceremonial objects
would spark her fascination with baroque style,
gold and colored gems in years to come.
Once upon a time…
There was a beautiful young girl who spent her days sewing
and her nights singing in a cabaret,
before troops of cavalrymen.
She was called “Coco”
because she often sang “Who has seen Coco in the Trocadero?”
She always preferred to pretend that Coco was the nickname given to her by her father.
Once upon a time…
A young woman with a boyish allure
refused to ride sidesaddle on the horses of a well-born cavalier,
Etienne Balsan.
She dressed like no one else,
taking her inspiration from masculine attire
and inventing new styles of hats, which she stripped of their birds
and feathers to make them simpler, lighter, more chic.
Her first clients were working girls, but society quickly followed.
Once upon a time…
There was a great love, named Boy Capel.
English, wealthy and cultivated,
he was the man of her dreams.
He introduced her to literature, the Orient, and the esoteric.
Boy helped Coco become Chanel.
She decided to open her first boutiques
in Paris, Deauville and Biarritz.
She wanted to work to win her liberty.
Once upon a time…
A revolution came to pass when,
in a stroke of genius,
Coco Chanel transformed the female silhouette.
She shortened dresses,
revealed ankles,
freed the waist,
eliminated corsets, revived jersey,
cut her hair and bronzed her skin.
Chanel closed one era and launched a new century of fashion.
Once upon a time…
At 31, rue Cambon,
Mademoiselle Chanel opened her first couture house in Paris in 1918.
The little country girl from Auvergne,
the orphan of Aubazine, had become the queen of Paris.
Before liberating women, she had liberated herself.
Once upon a time…
There was a love story that ended abruptly.
Boy Capel died in a car accident.
For the first and last time, Coco Chanel was seen to cry.
“Either I die as well,” she said, “or I finish what we started together.”
She chose to go on.
To be continued…
