Stuck in Second Gear by Carmen Reid is out now! Get your copy 📖
In the new book, one of my favourite characters, nephew Deva, is an expert on Coco Chanel. He knows a huge amount about her and loves to talk about his knowledge. I read my way through three brilliant Chanel biographies so that I could give Deva his insider knowledge.
Here are 10 lesser-known facts about this inspiring woman.
- Although Chanel grew up in an orphanage run by nuns, she wasn’t technically an orphan. When her mother died, her father dropped her and her sister off at the Aubazine convent while her brothers were sent to farmers to work. She didn’t see her father ever again but liked to tell people that he’d gone to America to work.
- The convent was a huge style influence on Chanel. The limestone floors and staircases, whitewashed walls, scrubbed pale wood furniture, the carbolic soaps, starchy linens, black and white nuns clothing, the stained-glass windows with interlocking circles – these were all elements that would go into her future style.
- Chanel was a neat and a clean freak with a highly developed sense of smell. She insisted she could smell the slightest hint of dust or dirt. Chanel no 5 perfume has elements of classic plain soap and lavender.
- We should thank Chanel for defining the place in society for a working and then a self-made woman. As a young woman, she was a rich man’s mistress but she was determined not to remain that. As she started to make her own money and become rich, she carved a place for herself in the highest echelons of society.
- Her rich, English lover, Boy Capel, who she would always describe as the love of her life, helped to fund her very first hat shop. Having broken her heart by marrying not her but a young English woman, he then shattered it by dying in a car crash in the south of France. She insisted on being driven to the site of the crash to mourn there.
- Chanel may not have invented the short bob, trousers for women, the little black dress or swimsuits, but she made them extremely fashionable and took them from edgy ‘street fashion’ to high and desirable style. She swam and played tennis and thought women should be out of corsets and free to move.
- She had a decade-long love affair with Duke of Westminster and would possibly have become his wife if she’d been able to provide an heir. After a row about another woman, Coco threw a priceless string of pearls the Duke had given her over the side of his yacht. When the affair ended, she was supposed to have declared: ‘There are many Duchesses of Westminster but only one Coco Chanel’.
- Chanel was highly aware of the power of publicity and personal brand. She loved to give advice, create slogans and memorable phrases, and she was genius at it. Just some of her lines: ‘A woman with no scent has no future’, ‘Fashion passes, style remains’, ‘There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time’.
- Boy Capel, the Duke of Westminster and her friend Sir Winston Churchill, all taught her love and respect for traditional British clothing and accessories. She adored thick tweeds, cashmere knits and all the leathercraft that went into saddlery and bridles for horses. Her iconic tweed suits are made with Scottish cashmere tweeds, and her handbags are an inspired mix of saddle and bridle skills, based on over-the-shoulder cartridge bags.
- Chanel wasn’t the first designer to see the enormous potential in launching her own perfume to make her luxury accessible to ordinary mortals, but she was the designer who made a massive success of it. Her gift for advertising and the stories behind the numbers – the fifth fragrance she sniffed, and no.19 after the address of the shop in Paris – all helped to make her perfumes the must-have items they still are today.
Hope you’ve enjoyed all my thoughts and that you’ll enjoy the new book too.
However you’re celebrating, have a lovely holiday season and hope you manage to enjoy plenty of reading time.
Loads of love,
Carmen xxx
