Illustrated talk enjoyed
ON TUESDAY March 1, members of the Charnwood Antique & Collectors’ Club were entertained by Julie Kinear who gave an illustrated talk on “The Life & Times of Co Co Chanel”
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born in 1883 to Eugenie Jeanne Deville Chanel, a laundrywoman, in a charity hospital, (a poorhouse), in Saumur, She was the second child (the first, Julia, born just 12 months before Gabrielle), of Jeanne (as she was known as), and Albert Chanel, (a Street Vendor). Her birth certificate showed her surname as being Chasnel, (due to a clerical error). Albert and Jeanne married in 1884. They had a further four children – 2 boys and 2 girls. Unfortunately, one of the girls died when she was six months old.
They all crowded into a small one room lodging house. When Gabrielle was 11, her mother died, aged 32. None of the children went to school. The boys were put to farming and the girls to the convent of Aubazine, in Moulin which ran an orphanage.
At 18 she left the convent and found employment as a seamstress. To help out her meagre wage, she went as a cabaret singer. Apparently she always sang a song “Who has seen Coco?” and it became her nickname. But her career as singer soon ended and she went back to Moulin.
Whilst there, she met a young French ex-cavalry officer and textile heir Etienne Balsan.
At the age of 23 she became his mistress and went to live with him in his chateau. His wealth enabled him to have lavish parties, mostly of a sexual nature. However, in 1908, she began an affair with one of Balsan’s friends, a Captain Arthur Edward ‘Boy’ Capel, who was a wealthy member of the English upper class, and bought an apartment in Paris for her.
Unfortunately, he died in a car accident on 22nd December 1919. Twenty-five years later she was living in Switzerland.
During her stay with Balsan, she started to design hats as a pass-time. But later on she began to display her hats in a Paris boutique and supplied a number of famous theatre actresses. Before his fatal accident, Capel bought her a boutique in 1913, in Deauville.
Here she designed knitted clothes for leisure and sports- wear that were produced and at a price affordable by everyone. In 1915 she bought a shop in Biarritz where she met the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia. By 1919 she was registered as a couturiere and established her maison de couture in Paris.
In 1925, she was introduced to a perfumer Ernest Bow. He asked her to choose a perfume she liked from the many bottles lined up. She chose the 5th one. Hence the name “Chanel No 5”. Throughout her life, she met, many famous people that included, the composer, Stravinsky, The Duke of Westminster, Sir Winston Churchill and Edward, Prince of Wales.
She also met many famous Hollywood stars, Greta Garbo, Marylyn Monroe and Gloria Swanson, to name but a few. She was also a friend of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy, ( just before his assassination in 1973). She died on 19th January 1971, in Paris aged 87.
It is interesting to note that her death certificate is in the name of Gabrielle Chasnel and that she never married. RFT