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Chanel was born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel on August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France. Her early years were anything but glamorous. At age 12, after her mother’s death, Chanel was put in an orphanage by her father, who worked as a peddler. Chanel was raised by nuns who taught her how to sew — a skill that would lead to her life’s work. Her nickname came f...

Around the age of 20, Chanel became involved with Etienne Balsan, who offered to help her start a millinery business in Paris. She soon left him for one of his wealthier friends, Arthur “Boy” Capel. Both men were instrumental in Chanel’s first fashion venture. Opening her first shop on Paris’s Rue Cambon in 1910, Chanel started out selling hats. Sh...

In the 1920s, Chanel took her thriving business to new heights. She launched her first perfume, Chanel No. 5, which was the first to feature a designer’s name. Perfume “is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion. . . . that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure,” Chanel once explained. The fragrance was in fact also back...

In 1925, Chanel introduced the now legendary Chanel suit with collarless jacket and well-fitted skirt. Her designs were revolutionary for the time—borrowing elements of men’s wear and emphasizing comfort over the constraints of then-popular fashions. She helped women say goodbye to the days of corsets and other confining garments. Another 1920s rev...

The international economic depression of the 1930s had a negative impact on Chanel's company, but it was the outbreak of World War IIthat led her to close her business. She fired her workers and shut down her shops. After the war, Chanel left Paris, spending some years in Switzerland in a sort of exile. She also lived at her country house in Roqueb...

At the age of 70, in the early 1950s, Chanel made a triumphant return to the fashion world. She first received scathing reviews from critics, but her feminine and easy-fitting designs soon won over shoppers around the world.

Beginning in 1920, Chanel had a short-lived relationship with composer Igor Stravinsky. Chanel had attended the notorious world premiere of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” in 1913. Around 1923, she met the wealthy Hugh Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster, aboard his yacht. The two started a decades-long relationship. In response to his marriage proposal, ...

During the German occupation of France, Chanel got involved with a Nazimilitary officer, Hans Gunther von Dincklage. She got special permission to stay in her apartment at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, which also operated as German military headquarters. After the war ended, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with von Dincklage, but she was ...

Chanel died on January 10, 1971, at her apartment in the Hotel Ritz. She never married, having once said “I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.” Hundreds crowded together at the Church of the Madeleine to bid farewell to the fashion icon. In tribute, many of the mourners wore Chanel suits. A little more than a decade after her ...