The first UK exhibition dedicated to the work of French couturière, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, charting the establishment of the House of CHANEL and the evolution of her iconic design style which continues to influence the way women dress today, is now at the V&A South Kensington. 

Giles and I wrote an inspirational story about Coco Chanel and No 5 in our Wonder Women book.  We included it in the ‘A Woman’s Place’ section of the book,

A woman’s place is where she wants it to be.

In many cases her place is to challenge, to change things, to make things better, to do things in a different way. 

Women are catalysts for change.     

To challenge and to change things sums up Coco Chanel perfectly.

Born into a rural peasant background in the 19th century and brought up in an orphanage run by nuns, Coco Chanel went on to transform women’s fashion, a truly revolutionary designer whose influence is still evident today. Her designs called into question the role of women, sex and power, and ignited a whole new way of dressing.

Through a combination of grit, graft and talent, she became one of the wealthiest women of her age. Her chic tweed suits, little black dresses and iconic glass perfume bottles are still as relevant today as they were in the early 1900s.

Enjoy the Coco Chanel story while you’re living this quote:

“A woman’s place is in the kitchen … sitting in a comfortable chair, with her feet up, drinking a glass of wine and watching her husband cook the dinner.”

Elizabeth Grant

From convent girl to the sweet smell of success – Coco Chanel – Chanel

Gabrielle Bonheur ‘Coco’ Chanel was the daughter of a market-stall holder and a laundry woman in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, France, but after her mother died, she was sent to a Cistercian convent where she would spend her teenage years.

In 1909, she arrived in Paris as the mistress of the textile baron Etienne Balsan. She set up a millinery boutique under Balsan’s apartment and by 1920 she had become a phenomenon in French fashion circles. She ran a series of successful boutiques in Paris, Deauville and Biarritz and was the belle of Parisian elite society. But she still wanted more. She was fastidiously clean, and later, when working with many of her clients, she would complain about the way they smelled, stinking of musk and body odour.

She decided to create a scent that could describe the new, modern woman she epitomized – “a woman’s perfume, with a woman’s scent,” and once Coco Chanel had decided something, she went about achieving it.

During the late summer of 1920, Chanel went on holiday to the Cote d’Azur with her then lover, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. There she learned of a perfumer, a sophisticated and well-read character called Ernest Beaux who had worked for the Russian royal family and lived close by in Grasse, the centre of the perfume industry.

Beaux took up Chanel’s challenge and after several months he had come up with ten samples that he presented to her. They were somewhat randomly numbered to anonymize them – one to five and 20 to 24.

One of the samples, whether by mistake or design, a question which is still the matter of some debate, contained a larger than normal dose of aldehyde. This was unusual because in those days the normal way to create fresh fragrances was to use citrus such as lemon, bergamot and orange but none of these lasted on the skin. Chemists had isolated chemicals called aldehydes that could artificially create these smells but, as they were very powerful, perfumers were hesitant to use them.

Chanel chose the sample with the aldehyde. “It was what I was waiting for. A perfume like nothing else,” she would later say.

It was a formulation that probably subconsciously appealed to her desire for cleanness and freshness.

And the number of the sample – No. 5, of course.

To celebrate, she invited Beaux and other friends to a popular upmarket restaurant on the Riviera and sprayed the perfume around the table. It is said that every woman who passed the table stopped and asked what the fragrance was and where it came from. She was now certain she had another success on her hands, or rather her neck.

And while the brand is now famous for its celebrity endorsement from the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Catherine Deneuve, Suzy Parker, Candice Bergen, Lauren Hutton, Nicole Kidman, Audrey Tatou and Gisele Bundchen, one of the first models used in the advertising was Coco herself.