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Coco Chanel

Female 1883 - 1971  (87 years)    Has 2 ancestors but no descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name Coco Chanel 
    Birth 19 Aug 1883  Saumur, France Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Death 10 Jan 1971  Paris, Île-de-France, France Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Siblings 1 Sibling 
    Person ID I480904  Geneagraphie
    Links To This person is also Coco Chanel at Wikipedia 
    Last Modified 17 Jan 2017 

    Father Albert Chanel 
    Mother Eugénie Jeanne Devolle,   b. 1863   d. 1895 (Age 32 years) 
    Family ID F308799  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 Jacqueline Susann,   b. 20 Aug 1918, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 21 Sep 1974, New York, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 56 years) 
    Marriage 1959 
    Family ID F192239  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 20 Jul 2004 

    Family 2 Maria Zofia Olga Zenajda Godebska,   b. 30 Mar 1872   d. 15 Oct 1950 (Age 78 years) 
    Family ID F367707  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 30 Mar 2013 

    Family 3 Etienne Balsan   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Family ID F192282  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 20 Jul 2004 

    Family 4 Arthur Capel, 'Boy'   d. 1918 
    Family ID F192283  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 20 Jul 2004 

    Family 5 Duke Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor,   b. 19 Mar 1879, Eaton Hall, Chester, Cheshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 20 Jul 1953, Lochmore Lodge, Sutherland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 74 years) 
    Family ID F192284  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 20 Jul 2004 

    Family 6 Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage,   b. Abt 1896   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Family ID F192285  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 20 Jul 2004 

  • Event Map Click to hide
    Link to Google MapsDeath - 10 Jan 1971 - Paris, Île-de-France, France Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 
    Pin Legend  : Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  • Photos Photos (Log in)Photos (Log in)

  • Notes 
    • Lived at the Aubazine orphanage, where she spent time as a ward of the state after her mother died and her father ran off.
      No doubt the sisters at the convent in Moulins, who took her in when she was 17, raised their eyebrows when the young woman left the seamstress job they had helped her get to try for a career as a cabaret singer. This stint as a performer — she was apparently charming but no Piaf — led her to take up with the local swells and become the backup mistress of Etienne Balsan, a playboy who would finance her move to Paris and the opening of her first hat business. That arrangement gave way to a bigger and better deal when she moved on to his friend, Arthur ("Boy") Capel, who is said to have been the love of her life and who backed her expansion from hats to clothes and from Paris to the coastal resorts of Deauville and Biarritz. One of her first successes was the loose-fitting sweater, which she belted and teamed with a skirt. These early victories were similar to the clothes she had been making for herself — women's clothes made out of Everyman materials such as jersey, usually associated with men's undergarments.
      Throughout the '20s, Chanel's social, sexual and professional progress continued, and her eminence grew to the status of legend. By the early '30s she'd been courted by Hollywood, gone and come back.
      When she didn't marry the Duke of Westminster, one of the richest men in Europe, her explanation was, "There have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel." In fact, there were many Coco Chanels, just as her work had many phases and many styles, including Gypsy skirts, over-the-top fake jewelry and glittering evening wear — made of crystal and jet beads laid over black and white georgette crepe — not just the plainer jersey suits and "little black dresses" that made her famous. But probably the single element that most ensured Chanel's being remembered, even when it would have been easier to write her off, is not a piece of clothing but a form of liquid gold — Chanel No. 5, in its Art Deco bottle, which was launched in 1923. It was the first perfume to bear a designer's name.
      One could say perfume helped keep Chanel's name pretty throughout the period when her reputation got ugly: World War II. This is when her anti-Semitism, homophobia (even though she herself dabbled in bisexuality) and other base inclinations emerged. She responded to the war by shutting down her fashion business and hooking up with Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a Nazi officer whose favors included permission to reside in her beloved Ritz Hotel. Years later, in 1954, when she decided to make a comeback, her name still had "disgraced" attached to it.
      Depending on the source, Chanel's return to the fashion world has been variously attributed to falling perfume sales, disgust at what she was seeing in the fashion of the day or simple boredom. All these explanations seem plausible, and so does Karl Lagerfeld's theory of why, this time around, the Chanel suit met such phenomenal success. Lagerfeld — who designs Chanel today and who has turned the company into an even bigger, more tuned-in business than it was before — points out, "By the '50s she had the benefit of distance, and so could truly distill the Chanel look. Time and culture had caught up with her." In Europe, her return to fashion was deemed an utter flop at first, but Americans couldn't buy her suits fast enough. Yet again Chanel had put herself into the yolk of the zeitgeist. By the time Katharine Hepburn played her on Broadway in 1969, Chanel had achieved first-name recognition and was simply Coco.



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