When did Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel take the name "Coco"?
Coco Chanel
Having learned to sew during her six years at Aubazine, Chanel found employment as a seamstress. When not sewing, she sang in a cabaret frequented by cavalry officers. Chanel made her stage debut singing at a "cafe-concert" (a popular entertainment venue of the era) in a Moulins pavilion, "La Rotonde". She was a "poseuse", a performer who entertained the crowd between star turns. The money earned was what they managed to accumulate when the plate was passed. It was at this time that Gabrielle acquired the name "Coco" when she spent her nights singing in the cabaret, often the song, "Who Has Seen Coco?" She often liked to say the nickname was given to her by her father. Others believe "Coco" came from "Ko Ko Ri Ko", and "Qui qu'a vu Coco", or it was an allusion to the French word for kept woman, "cocotte". As an entertainer, Chanel radiated a juvenile allure that tantalized the military habitués of the cabaret.
Chanel
In later collections Lagerfeld chose to break away from the ladylike look of Chanel and began to experiment with fabrics and styles. During the 1980s, more than 40 Chanel boutiques opened worldwide. By the end of the 1980s, the boutiques sold goods ranging from US$200-per-ounce perfume, US$225 ballerina slippers to US$11,000 dresses and US$2,000 leather handbags. Chanel cosmetics and fragrances were distributed only by Chanel outlets. Chanel marketer Jean Hoehn explained the firm's approach, saying, "We introduce a new fragrance every 10 years, not every three minutes like many competitors. We don't confuse the consumer. With Chanel, people know what to expect. And they keep coming back to us, at all ages, as they enter and leave the market." The 1984 launch of a new fragrance, in honor of the founder, "Coco", continued the label's success. In 1986, the House of Chanel struck a deal with watchmakers and in 1987, the first Chanel watch debuted. By the end of the decade, Alain moved the offices to New York City.
Chanel
The success of the No. 5 encouraged Coco Chanel to expand perfume sales beyond France and Europe and to develop other perfumes — for which she required investment capital, business acumen, and access to the North American market. To that end, the businessman Théophile Bader (founder of Galeries Lafayette) introduced the venture capitalist Pierre Wertheimer to Coco Chanel. Their business deal established the Parfums Chanel company, a "parfumerie" of which Wertheimer owned 70 per cent, Bader owned 20 per cent, and Chanel owned 10 per cent; commercial success of the joint enterprise was assured by the Chanel name, and by the cachet of la "Maison Chanel", which remained the sole business province of Coco Chanel.
Coco Chanel
In September 1944, Chanel was interrogated by the Free French Purge Committee, the "épuration". The committee had no documented evidence of her collaborative activities and was obliged to release her. According to Chanel's grand-niece, Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, when Chanel returned home she said, "Churchill had me freed".
Coco Chanel
Suspicions of Coco Chanel's involvement first began when German tanks entered Paris and began the Nazi occupation. Chanel immediately sought refuge in the deluxe Hotel Ritz, which was also used as the headquarters of the German military. It was at the Hotel Ritz where she fell in love with Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage working in the German embassy close to the Gestapo. When the Nazi occupation of France began, Chanel decided to close her store, claiming a patriotic motivation behind such decision. However, when she moved into the same Hotel Ritz that was housing the German military, her motivations became clear to many. While many women in France were punished for “horizontal collaboration” with German officers, Chanel faced no such action. At the time of the French liberation in 1944, Chanel left in a note in her store window explaining Chanel No. 5 to be free to all GIs. During this time, she fled to Switzerland to avoid criminal charges for her collaborations as a Nazi spy.
Boy Capel
His affair with Chanel apparently began in 1909, when he became acquainted with the then 26-year-old mistress of his friend Étienne Balsan. Capel financed Chanel's first shops and his own clothing style, notably his blazers, inspired her creation of the Chanel look. The couple spent time together at fashionable resorts such as Deauville, but he was never faithful to Chanel. Their relationship lasted nine years, and even after Capel married he continued his affair with Chanel until his death in late 1919.
Chanel
Later, in 1965, Pierre's son, Jacques Wertheimer, assumed his father's management of the "parfumerie". About the past business relationship, between Pierre Wertheimer and Coco Chanel, the Chanel attorney, Chambrun said that it had been "one based on a businessman's passion, despite her misplaced feelings of exploitation . . . [thus] when Pierre returned to Paris, full of pride and excitement [after one of his horses won the 1956 English Derby]. He rushed to Coco, expecting congratulations and praise. But she refused to kiss him. She resented him, you see, all her life."
Robert Goossens
Starting in 1954 with his creation of the Byzantine style, Goossens worked with Coco Chanel to design jewelry to accompany her fashion designs, mostly through presentations where she would guide his inspiration. Chanel herself loved to blend the rich with the poor, and Goossens's creations were entirely in keeping with that approach. Notable work during his tenure at Chanel includes silver and gold plated pins set with emeralds, moon earth pendants, and crystal Byzantine crosses.
Coco Chanel
In 1926, the American edition of "Vogue" published an image of a Chanel little black dress with long sleeves, dubbing it the "garçonne" ('little boy' look). "Vogue" predicted that such a simple yet chic design would become a virtual uniform for women of taste, famously comparing its basic lines to the ubiquitous and no less widely accessible Ford automobile. The spare look generated widespread criticism from male journalists, who complained: "no more bosom, no more stomach, no more rump ... Feminine fashion of this moment in the 20th century will be baptized lop off everything." The popularity of the little black dress can be attributed in part to the timing of its introduction. The 1930s was the Great Depression era, when women needed affordable fashion. Chanel boasted that she had enabled the non-wealthy to "walk around like millionaires". Chanel started making little black dresses in wool or chenille for the day and in satin, crêpe or velvet for the evening.
Arie L. Kopelman
In 1985 the owners of Chanel, Alain Wertheimer and Gérard Wertheimer, hired Kopelman as Chanel Inc.’s president and chief operating officer at their headquarters in New York City. At that point, Kopelman already had a 14-year-long working relationship with Chanel through DDB, where he had crafted advertising campaigns for the brand. Over the next 19 years at Chanel, Kopelman grew the brand to expand its core retail, fragrance, cosmetics, skin care, eyewear, and accessories businesses, transforming Chanel into a company earning multi-billion dollar revenues. At the outset of Kopelman’s career with Chanel, the brand had two standalone boutiques and its annual revenue was reported at $357 million. By the time of his retirement, there were 17 brick-and-mortar boutiques just in the United States and in 2014, Chanel reported annual sales in the area of $7 billion.
Coromandel lacquer
In the 20th century, the famous fashion designer Coco Chanel (1883–1971) was an avid collector of Chinese folding screens, especially the Coromandel screens, and is believed to have owned 32 folding screens of which eight were housed in her apartment at 31 rue Cambon, Paris. She once said:
Égoïste
Based on Bois des Îles, Égoïste is the first male perfume with sandalwood oil as its main note. Another of its components is ambrette seed. The fragrance's name when it was introduced domestically in the 1980s was Bois Noir, French for "Black Wood", a name that was originally used in the working stage. Prior to its 1990 international launch, the product was rebranded because Chanel's marketing department did not like the Bois Noir name. The company had to purchase the rights to use the Égoïste name from photography magazine publisher Nicole Wisniak.
Coco Chanel
In 1929 Chanel introduced a handbag inspired by soldier's bags. It's thin shoulder strap allowed the user to keep her hands free.Following her comeback, Chanel updated the design in February 1955, creating what would become the "2.55" (named for the date of its creation). Whilst details of the classic bag have been reworked, such as the 1980s update by Karl Lagerfeld when the clasp and lock were redesigned to incorporate the Chanel logo and leather was interlaced through the shoulder chain, the bag has retained its original basic form. In 2005, the Chanel firm released an exact replica of the original 1955 bag to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its creation.
Beaufille
Beaufille is a Canadian fashion label specializing in fashion, jewelry and accessories for women. It was founded as Chloé comme Parris in 2009 by sisters Chloé Gordon and Parris Gordon. The name was changed to Beaufille in April 2013. Both sisters studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Chloé Gordon graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree majoring in Textiles while Parris graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree majoring in jewelry. Chloe Gordon designs the ready-to-wear while Parris Gordon creates all of the accessories for the label.
Chanel
Chanel introduced Coco Mademoiselle and an "In-Between Wear" in 2003, targeting younger women, opened a second shop on Rue Cambon, opened a boutique in Hong Kong and paid nearly $50 million USD for a building in Ginza, Tokyo.
Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster
In 1925, he was introduced to Gabrielle ("Coco") Chanel after a party in Monte Carlo and pursued her. He was as extravagant with her as he was with all of his lovers. He purchased a home for Chanel in London's prestigious Mayfair district, and in 1927 gave her a parcel of land on the French Riviera at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin where Chanel built her villa, "La Pausa". His romantic liaison with Chanel lasted ten years. An illustration of both Westminster’s extravagance and orchestrated technique in the courting of women has endured in the form of various apocryphal stories. He purportedly concealed a huge uncut emerald at the bottom of a crate of vegetables delivered to Chanel. Disguised as a deliveryman, Westminster appeared at Chanel’s apartment with an enormous bouquet of flowers. His ruse was only uncovered after Chanel’s assistant offered “the delivery boy” a tip.
Coco Chanel
Chanel, determined to re-create the success she enjoyed in Deauville, opened an establishment in Biarritz in 1915. Biarritz, on the Côte Basque, close to wealthy Spanish clients, was a playground for the moneyed set and those exiled from their native countries by the war. The Biarritz shop was installed not as a storefront, but in a villa opposite the casino. After one year of operation, the business proved to be so lucrative that in 1916 Chanel was able to reimburse Capel's original investment. In Biarritz Chanel met an expatriate aristocrat, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia. They had a romantic interlude, and maintained a close association for many years afterward. By 1919, Chanel was registered as a "couturière" and established her "maison de couture" at 31 rue Cambon, Paris.
Little black dress
In 1926 Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel published a picture of a short, simple black dress in American "Vogue". It was calf-length, straight and decorated only by a few diagonal lines. "Vogue" called it "Chanel's Ford". Like the Model T, the little black dress was simple and accessible for women of all social classes. "Vogue" also said that the LBD would become "a sort of uniform for all women of taste". This, as well as other designs by the house of Chanel helped disassociate black from mourning, and reinvent it as the uniform of the high-class, wealthy, and chic. As Coco herself proclaimed, "I imposed black; it's still going strong today, for black wipes out everything else around."
Coco Chanel
When Gabrielle was 12, her mother died of tuberculosis at the age of 32. Her father sent his two sons to work as farm laborers and sent his three daughters to the convent of Aubazine, which ran an orphanage. Its religious order, the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary, was "founded to care for the poor and rejected, including running homes for abandoned and orphaned girls". It was a stark, frugal life, demanding strict discipline. Placement in the orphanage may have been the best thing for Coco's future because it is where she learned to sew. At age eighteen, Chanel, too old to remain at Aubazine, went to live in a boarding house for Catholic girls in the town of Moulins.
Coco Chanel
Although Chanel was viewed as a prominent figure of luxury fashion during her life, Chanel's influence has been examined further post death in 1971. She continued to spend her final years in luxury evermore at her magnificent Ritz apartment. When Chanel died, the first lady of France, Mme, Pompidou organized a hero's tribute. Soon damaging documents from French intelligence agencies were released that outlined Chanel's war time involvements that quickly ended her monumental funeral plans.
Coco Chanel (film)
Coco Chanel is a 2008 made-for-television biographical film directed by Christian Duguay and written by Ron Hutchinson, Enrico Medioli and Lea Tafuri. It stars Shirley MacLaine as (the older) Coco Chanel, the pioneering French fashion designer. MacLaine was nominated for a Golden Globe award, an Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild award for her work in the film.
Chanel No. 22
Coco Chanel had worked with Ernest Beaux on her original perfume, Chanel No. 5, which debuted in 1921. The following year, they released Chanel No. 22. There are also reports that the official debut was made in 1928 to coincide with the introduction of Mademoiselle Chanel's "White Look" fashion line.
Coco Before Chanel
Coco Before Chanel () is a 2009 biographical drama film directed and co-written by Anne Fontaine. The film stars Audrey Tautou and details the early life of French fashion designer Coco Chanel.
Coco Chanel
During Chanel's affair with the Duke of Westminster in the 1930s, her style began to reflect her personal emotions. Her inability to reinvent the little black dress was a sign of such reality. She began to design a “less is more” aesthetic.
Chanel
To regain the business primacy of the House of Chanel, in the fashion fields of "haute couture", "prêt-à-porter", costume jewelry, and "parfumerie", would be expensive; so Chanel approached Pierre Wertheimer for business advice and capital. Having decided to do business with Coco Chanel, Wertheimer's negotiations to fund the resurgence of the House of Chanel, granted him commercial rights to all Chanel-brand products.
Chanel (dog)
Chanel (May 6, 1988 – August 28, 2009) was a female dachshund, from the United States, that held the Guinness World Records as the world's oldest dog. She died at the age of 21 on August 28, 2009.
Charlie Hebdo
In order to sidestep the ban, the editorial team decided to change its title, and used "Charlie Hebdo". The new name was derived from a monthly comics magazine called "Charlie" (later renamed "Charlie Mensuel", meaning "Charlie Monthly"), which had been started by Bernier and Delfeil de Ton in 1969. The monthly "Charlie" took its name from the lead character of one of the comics it originally published, "Peanuts"s Charlie Brown. Using that title for the new weekly magazine was also an inside joke about Charles de Gaulle. The first issue did feature a "Peanuts" strip, as the editors were fans of the series.
Coco Chanel
At birth, Chanel's name was entered into the official registry as "Chasnel". Jeanne was too unwell to attend the registration, and Albert was registered as "travelling". With both parents absent, the infant's last name was misspelled, probably due to a clerical error. The couple had five children who survived—two boys and three girls—who lived crowded into a one-room lodging in the town of Brive-la-Gaillarde.
Coco Chanel
In 1931, while in Monte Carlo Chanel became acquainted with Samuel Goldwyn. She was introduced through a mutual friend, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, cousin to the last czar of Russia, Nicolas II. Goldwyn offered Chanel a tantalizing proposition. For the sum of a million dollars (approximately US$75 million today), he would bring her to Hollywood twice a year to design costumes for MGM stars. Chanel accepted the offer. Accompanying her on her first trip to Hollywood was her friend, Misia Sert.
Coco Chanel
The writer Colette, who moved in the same social circles as Chanel, provided a whimsical description of Chanel at work in her atelier, which appeared in "Prisons et Paradis" (1932). "If every human face bears a resemblance to some animal, then Mademoiselle Chanel is a small black bull. That tuft of curly black hair, the attribute of bull-calves, falls over her brow all the way to the eyelids and dances with every maneuver of her head."
Charlene (singer)
She was born as Charlene Marilynn D'Angelo, which was later shortened to Charlene for her record label. In 1973, she signed with Motown and, using the moniker "Charlene Duncan," released two unsuccessful singles: "Relove/Give It One More Try" (M 1262) in July 1973 and, in January 1974, a cover of "All That Love Went to Waste" (M 1285) from the film "A Touch of Class". Charlene sought to find her niche at Motown by writing her own songs, doing demos for other artists (including Michael Jackson's "One Day in Your Life") and working with different producers and writers before finally being teamed-up with Ron Miller.
Coco Chanel
Unlike the pre-war era, when women reigned as the premier couturiers, Christian Dior achieved success in 1947 with his "New Look", and a cadre of male designers achieved recognition: Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Robert Piguet, and Jacques Fath. Chanel was convinced that women would ultimately rebel against the aesthetic favored by the male couturiers, what she called "illogical" design: the "waist cinchers, padded bras, heavy skirts, and stiffened jackets".
Coco Chanel
In 1943, Chanel travelled to the Reich Main Security Office ("Reichssicherheitshauptamt") in Berlin—the "lion's den"—with her liaison and "old friend", the German Embassy in Paris press attaché Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, a former Prussian Army officer and attorney general, who was also known as "Sparrow" among his friends and colleagues. Dincklage was also a collaborator for the German "Sicherheitsdienst" (Security Service); his superiors being Walter Schellenberg and Alexander Waag in Berlin. Chanel and Dincklage were to report to Walter Schellenberg at the Reich Main Security Office ("Reichssicherheitshauptamt") with a ludicrous plan that Chanel had proposed to Dincklage: she, Coco Chanel, wants to meet British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and persuade him to negotiate with the Germans. In late-1943 or early-1944, Chanel and her SS superior, Schellenberg, who had a weakness for unconventional schemes, devised a plan to get Britain to consider a separate peace to be negotiated by the SS. When interrogated by British intelligence at war's end, Schellenberg maintained that Chanel was "a person who knew Churchill sufficiently to undertake political negotiations with him". For this mission, code named "Operation Modellhut", they also recruited Vera Bate Lombardi. Count Joseph von Ledebur-Wicheln, a Nazi agent who defected to the British Secret Service in 1944, recalled a meeting he had with Dincklage in early 1943, in which the baron had suggested including Lombardi as a courier. Dincklage purportedly said, "The "Abwehr" had first to bring to France a young Italian woman [Lombardi] Coco Chanel was attached to because of her lesbian vices..."
Étienne Balsan
Balsan was portrayed by actor Benoît Poelvoorde in the feature film "Coco avant Chanel" (2009), by Sagamore Stévenin in the television film Coco Chanel (2008), and by Rutger Hauer in the 1981 release "Chanel Solitaire".
Fulco di Verdura
A meeting in 1919 put Fulco on the path to discover what would be his life’s work. That year, he met Linda and Cole Porter – two of his biggest supporters and early backers – in Palermo. Six years later, during a party hosted by the Porters in Venice, Linda introduced Fulco to Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who would go on to hire Fulco as a textile designer in 1927. Quickly identifying his talents, Chanel asked him to update the settings of jewelry she had been given by ex-lovers, including Bendor, Duke of Westminster, and the Russian Grand Duke Dmitri. Impressed with his work, Chanel began what would be an eight-year collaboration by making him head designer of Chanel jewelry.
The Allure of Chanel
The Allure of Chanel () are the memoirs of the French fashion designer Coco Chanel, told to her friend Paul Morand. The book was written in the winter of 1946 and is based on a series of conversations held at a hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where Chanel had invited Morand to write her memoirs. The conversations took place during the evenings and each night Morand stayed up to write notes. The notes were published in French in 1976 and in English in 2008, translated by Euan Cameron. A second English edition was published in 2012, expanded with original drawings by Karl Lagerfeld.
Danielle Darrieux
In 1970, Darrieux replaced Katharine Hepburn in the Broadway musical "Coco", based on the life of Coco Chanel, but the play, essentially a showcase for Hepburn, soon folded without her. In 1971 and 1972 she also appeared in the short-lived productions of "Ambassador". She worked again with Demy for his film "Une chambre en ville" (1982), an opera-like musical melodrama reminiscent of the director's earlier work "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" ("Les Parapluies de Cherbourg", 1964). Once again, Darrieux provided her own vocals for her songs.
Coco Chanel
After the jersey suit, the concept of the little black dress is often cited as a Chanel contribution to the fashion lexicon, a style still worn to this day. In 1912–1913, the actress Suzanne Orlandi was one of the first women to wear a Chanel little black dress, in velvet with a white collar. In 1920, Chanel herself vowed that, while observing an audience at the opera, she would dress all women in black.
French fashion
Chanel founded by Mademoiselle Coco Chanel, it first came to prominence in 1925, its philosophy was to emphasize understated elegance through her clothing. Her popularity thrived in the 1920s, because of innovative designs. Chanel's own look itself was as different and new as her creations. Instead of the usual pale-skinned, long-haired and full-bodied women preferred at the time, Chanel had a boyish figure, short cropped hair, and tanned skin. She had a distinct type of beauty that the world came to embrace.
Chanel No. 5
In 1920, when presented with small glass vials containing sample scents numbered 1 to 5 and 20 to 24 for her assessment, she chose the fifth vial. Chanel told her master perfumer, Ernest Beaux, whom she had commissioned to develop a new fragrance, "I present my dress collections on the fifth of May, the fifth month of the year and so we will let this sample number five keep the name it has already, it will bring good luck."
Paul César Helleu
Among many of Helleu's friends was Coco Chanel, who picked beige as her signature colour upon the advice of the artist—the colour of the sand on the beach of Biarritz in the early morning. Both his son Jean Helleu and his grandson Jacques Helleu became artistic directors for Parfums Chanel.
Coco Chanel
One of Chanel's longest enduring associations was with Misia Sert, a member of the bohemian elite in Paris and wife of Spanish painter José-Maria Sert. It is said that theirs was an immediate bond of kindred souls, and Misia was attracted to Chanel by "her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled everyone". Both women were convent schooled, and maintained a friendship of shared interests and confidences. They also shared drug use. By 1935, Chanel had become a habitual drug user, injecting herself with morphine on a daily basis, a habit she maintained to the end of her life. According to Chandler Burr's "The Emperor of Scent", Luca Turin related an apocryphal story in circulation that Chanel was "called Coco because she threw the most fabulous cocaine parties in Paris".
Chanel
In Switzerland, the news revived Coco Chanel's resentment at having been exploited by her business partner, for only ten per cent of the money. So she established a rival Swiss "parfumerie" to create, produce, and sell "her" "Chanel perfumes". In turn, Wertheimer, the majority capital stock owner of Parfums Chanel, saw his business interests threatened, and his commercial rights infringed because he did not possess legally exclusive rights to the Chanel name. Nonetheless, Wertheimer avoided a trademark infringement lawsuit against Coco Chanel, lest it damage the commercial reputation and the artistic credibility of "his" Chanel-brand "parfumerie".
Coco Chanel
In 1913, Chanel opened a boutique in Deauville, financed by Arthur Capel, where she introduced deluxe casual clothing suitable for leisure and sport. The fashions were constructed from humble fabrics such as jersey and tricot, at the time primarily used for men's underwear. The location was a prime one, in the center of town on a fashionable street. Here Chanel sold hats, jackets, sweaters, and the "marinière", the sailor blouse. Chanel had the dedicated support of two family members, her sister Antoinette, and her paternal aunt Adrienne, who was of a similar age. Adrienne and Antoinette were recruited to model Chanel's designs; on a daily basis the two women paraded through the town and on its boardwalks, advertising the Chanel creations.
Coco Mademoiselle
In 2007, Chanel launched a new advertising film starring its current spokesmodel Keira Knightley as Coco Chanel. The film was directed by the upcoming English BAFTA-winning director Joe Wright, who has also worked with Knightley in his award-winning films "Pride & Prejudice" (2005) and "Atonement" (2007). The soul singer Joss Stone re-recorded Nat King Cole's 1965 "L-O-V-E" for the short film.
Éric Rochat
In 1981, the story of the icon of the times, Coco Chanel, was brought to the screen in "Chanel Solitaire", produced by George Kaczender, starring Marie-France Pisier, Lambert Wilson and Timothy Dalton.
Chanel
Chanel 'High Jewellery' was founded in November 1932. Chanel debuted 'Bijoux de Diamants' at her Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris mansion. In 2012, the company created a special collection to celebrate Diamants' 80th anniversary. Current collections include High Jewellery, Camelia, Comete, Baroque, 1932, Ultra, Bridal and Jewellery Watches.
History of Paris (1946–2000)
Coco Chanel branched out from clothing into perfume in the 1920s, inventing Chanel No. 5. In 1955, she branched out again with a new design of a handbag, which was soon imitated, in various forms, by other designers.
Bill Smith (jewelry designer)
In June 1968, Bill Smith was made vice-president of Richelieu, at that time the second largest jewelry firm in America, after only two months with the company as their head designer. Later that year in October, he was commissioned to exclusively create all the jewelry for the Broadway production of "Coco", a stage musical about the life of Coco Chanel starring Katharine Hepburn.
Coco Chanel
Chanel's social connections encouraged a conservative personal outlook. Rumors arose about Chanel's activities during the German occupation of France during World War II, and she was criticized for being too close to the German occupiers: One of Chanel's liaisons was with a German diplomat, Baron ("Freiherr") . After the war, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with von Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator. After several post-war years in Switzerland, she returned to Paris and revived her fashion house. In 2011, Hal Vaughan published a book about Chanel based on newly declassified documents, revealing that she had collaborated with German intelligence activities. One plan in late-1943 was for her to carry an SS peace overture to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to end the war.
Bois des Îles
Bois des Îles () is a fragrance produced by Parisian couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. The name is French for "Island Wood" or, more literally, "Wood of the Islands".
Chanel
In the 1920s, the simple-line designs of Chanel couture made popular the "flat-chested" fashions that were the opposite of the hourglass-figure achieved by the fashions of the late 19th century — the Belle Époque of France (ca. 1890–1914), and the British Edwardian era (ca. 1901–1919). Chanel used colors traditionally associated with masculinity in Europe, such as grey and navy blue, to denote feminine boldness of character. The clothes of the House of Chanel featured quilted fabric and leather trimmings; the quilted construction reinforces the fabric, the design, and the finish, producing a garment that maintains its form and function while being worn. An example of such haute couture techniques is the woolen Chanel suit — a knee-length skirt and a cardigan-style jacket, trimmed and decorated with black embroidery and gold-coloured buttons. The complementary accessories were two-tone pump shoes and jewellery, usually a necklace of pearls, and a leather handbag.The House of Chanel (Chanel S.A.) originated in 1909 when Gabrielle Chanel opened a millinery shop at 160 Boulevard Malesherbes, the ground floor of the Parisian flat of the socialite and textile businessman Étienne Balsan, of whom she was the mistress. Because the Balsan flat also was a salon for the French hunting and sporting élite, Chanel had the opportunity to meet their "demi-mondaine" mistresses, who, as such, were women of fashion, upon whom the rich men displayed their wealth — as ornate clothes, jewelry, and hats.
Coco (cartoonist)
Corinne Rey (born 21 August 1982) is a French cartoonist who publishes under the pen name Coco.
Chanel No. 5
Parfums Chanel was the corporate entity established in 1924 to run the production, marketing, and distribution of the fragrance business. Chanel wanted to spread the sale of Chanel No. 5 from beyond her boutiques to the rest of the world. The first new market was New York City. The initial marketing was discreet and deliberately restricted. The first ad appeared in "The New York Times" on 16 December 1924. It was a small ad for Parfums Chanel announcing the Chanel line of fragrances available at Bonwit Teller, an upscale department store. In the ad, all the bottles were indistinguishable from each another, displaying all the Chanel perfumes available, Numbers 9, 11, 22, and the centerpiece of the line, No. 5. This was the extent of the advertising campaign in the 1920s and appeared only intermittently. In the US, the sale of Chanel No. 5 was promoted at perfume counters in high-end department stores. The "Galeries Lafayette" was the first retailer of the fragrance in Paris. In France itself, Chanel No. 5 was not advertised until the 1940s.
Rats &amp; Star
In 1975, Masayuki Suzuki, Masashi Tashiro and Nobuyoshi Kuwano, joined together to form a band called Chanels. The band debuted in 1980 with their first single "Runaway" selling over a million copies and becoming a huge hit. In 1983, the band changed its name to Rats & Star due to complaints from the French fashion giant Chanel. Andy Warhol created the album cover for "Soul Vacation" and the name change seemed to make no difference in sales, as their first single as Rats & Star, "Me-Gumi no Hito", sold over 800,000 copies. Five of the members were married at Tokyo's Hie Shrine at the same time during 1985, generating a lot of publicity for the group. Rats & Star released a duet with Masayuki's older sister Kiyomi Suzuki called "Lonely Chaplain" in 1986, which also became a huge hit. Although leader Masayuki Suzuki launched a solo career and Rats & Star's activity thus essentially stopped. Afterward, Tashiro and Kuwano played an active part and were so popular not as musical artists, as TV performers. they formed Rats & Star again in the limitation of half a year and released the single "Yume de Aetara" in 1996, which was popular enough to encourage the group to go on a final nationwide tour. The same year, they made their first appearance on Kōhaku Uta Gassen to perform that song.
Carole Crist
After her father's death in 2000, Crist ran Franco-American Novelty for the next six years. She coined the slogan ""Where Fashion Meets Halloween"" and changed the focus of the company to more figure-flattering, high-fashion costumes. In 2006, she handed over control of Franco-American to her sister, Michele Oumano Powell, and in January, 2013 resigned from her management position. In 2012, Crist started a new Halloween Costume business in St. Petersburg, Florida called Goddessey, L.L.C., which she sold in early 2017.
Coco Chanel
In 1945, Chanel moved to Switzerland, where she lived for several years, part of the time with Dincklage. In 1953 she sold her villa "La Pausa" on the French Riviera to the publisher and translator Emery Reves. Five rooms from La Pausa have been replicated at the Dallas Museum of Art, to house the Reves' art collection as well as pieces of furniture belonging to Chanel.
Étienne Balsan
He noticed Coco Chanel in Moulins (Allier) and became her lover. They remained friends throughout their lives. In 1909, when Chanel settled in Paris, he lent her his bachelor flat on the ground floor, 160 Boulevard Malesherbes, and helped her to open a boutique in Deauville. Balsan introduced her to Paris society, including Englishman Arthur "Boy" Capel who later became Chanel's lover, and who helped Chanel to finance her early fashion business.
Chanel No. 22
Chanel No. 22 is one of several well-known fragrances from Parisian couturier, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel.
Chanel
In the post–war period, during Coco Chanel's Swiss exile from France, Pierre Wertheimer returned to Paris and regained formal administrative control of his family's business holdings — including control of Parfums Chanel, the "parfumerie" established with his venture capital, and successful because of the Chanel name.
Pierre Reverdy
One of Reverdy’s most enduring and profound relationships was with the couturier, Coco Chanel. The intense period of their romantic liaison lasted from 1921-1926. Yet after the fire of this initial involvement cooled, they still maintained a deep bond, and great friendship, which would continue for some forty years. He had always been both appalled and intrigued by the wealth and excess that comprised Chanel’s social circle. Reverdy had become enamored with American jazz, which had just become a popular craze in Paris, a type of nightlife for which Chanel expressed contempt. Chanel, however was a necessary component in his poetic output. She bolstered his confidence, supported his creative ability and further helped assuage his financial instability by secretly buying his manuscripts through his publisher.
Chanel No. 5
In the 1970s the brand name needed revitalization. For the first time it ran the risk of being labeled as "mass market" and passé. The fragrance was removed from drug stores and similar outlets. Outside advertising agencies were dropped. The rebranding was managed by Jacques Helleu, the artistic director for Parfums Chanel. Helleu chose French actress Catherine Deneuve as the new face of Chanel. Print ads showcased the iconic sculpture of the bottle. Television commercials were inventive mini-films with production values of surreal fantasy and seduction. Directed by Ridley Scott in the 1970s and 1980s, they "played on the same visual imagery, with the same silhouette of the bottle".
Gaston Bonheur
First a poet, close to the surrealists, he founded the magazine "Choc". He then moved on to journalism. He was hired by as chief reporter for the daily "Paris-Soir". In 1947 he was editor-in-chief at the weekly "Paris Match" and in 1948, editor-in-chief of the daily "Paris-Presse". For several years he was the director of the press empire of Jean Prouvost which included the publications "Télé 7 Jours", "Le Figaro", "Paris Match", and "France-Soir".
Coco Chanel
As 1971 began, Chanel was 87 years old, tired, and ailing. She carried out her usual routine of preparing the spring catalogue. She had gone for a long drive the afternoon of Saturday, 9 January. Soon after, feeling ill, she went to bed early. She died on Sunday, 10 January 1971, at the Hotel Ritz, where she had resided for more than 30 years.
Her funeral was held at the Église de la Madeleine; her fashion models occupied the first seats during the ceremony and her coffin was covered with white flowers—camellias, gardenias, orchids, azaleas and a few red roses. She died in her infamous style, announcing: "You see, this is how you die."
Coco Chanel
Vaughan also addressed the discomfort many felt with the revelations provided in his book: "A lot of people in this world don't want the iconic figure of Gabrielle Coco Chanel, one of France's great cultural idols, destroyed. This is definitely something that a lot of people would have preferred to put aside, to forget, to just go on selling Chanel scarves and jewellery."
Chanel Solitaire
Chanel Solitaire is a 1981 British-French historical drama film directed by George Kaczender and starring Marie-France Pisier, Timothy Dalton, Rutger Hauer, Brigitte Fossey, Karen Black, Lambert Wilson. The film's subject was Coco Chanel. Its budget was around $7 million.
Chanel
In 1921, to complement the suit of clothes, Coco Chanel commissioned the perfumer Ernest Beaux to create a perfume for the House of Chanel, his perfumes included the perfume No.5, named after the number of the sample Chanel liked best. Originally, a bottle of No. 5 de Chanel was a gift to clients of Chanel. The popularity of the perfume prompted the House of Chanel to offer it for retail sale in 1922.
Cuir de Russie
Coco Chanel had worked with Ernest Beaux on her original perfume, Chanel No. 5, which debuted in 1921. In 1927, they released Cuir de Russie, which means "Russia leather" in French. In the 1920s, one of Chanel's lovers was Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, the cousin of Tsar Nicholas II, and, according to Chanel's biographer Justine Picardie, Cuir de Russie was the "bottled ... essence of her romance with the Grand Duke."
Pierre Wertheimer
For a seventy percent share of the company, the Wertheimers agreed to provide full financing for production, marketing and distribution of Chanel No. 5. Théophile Bader was given a twenty percent share. For ten percent of the stock, Chanel licensed her name to "Parfums Chanel" and removed herself from involvement in all business operations. Ultimately displeased with the arrangement, Chanel worked for more than twenty years to gain full control of "Parfums Chanel." In 1935, Chanel instigated a lawsuit against the Wertheimers, which proved unsuccessful.
Coco Chanel
Chanel had begun designing hats while living with Balsan, initially as a diversion that evolved into a commercial enterprise. She became a licensed milliner in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris, named "Chanel Modes". As this location already housed an established clothing business, Chanel sold only her millinery creations at this address. Chanel's millinery career bloomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorziat wore her hats in Fernand Nozière's play "Bel Ami" in 1912. Subsequently, Dorziat modelled Chanel's hats again in photographs published in "Les Modes".
Anne Fontaine
In 1999 the character Augustin (Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc) re-appeared in Fontaine's film "Augustin, King of Kung-Fu". "How I Killed My Father" was released in 2001, and "Nathalie..." followed in 2003. The 2005 film, "Entre ses mains" was widely described as a thriller: an "intimate thriller" according to Fontaine herself. A third Augustin film, "Nouvelle chance" (also known as "Oh La La") was released in 2006. Then came "The Girl From Monaco" in 2008 and "Coco Before Chanel", her biopic of Coco Chanel, in 2009.
Coco Chanel
In 1908, Chanel began an affair with one of Balsan's friends, Captain Arthur Edward 'Boy' Capel. In later years, Chanel reminisced of this time in her life: "two gentlemen were outbidding for my hot little body." Capel, a wealthy member of the English upper class, installed Chanel in an apartment in Paris. and financed her first shops. It is said that Capel's sartorial style influenced the conception of the Chanel look. The bottle design for Chanel No. 5 had two probable origins, both attributable to her association with Capel. It is believed Chanel adapted the rectangular, beveled lines of the Charvet toiletry bottles he carried in his leather traveling case or she adapted the design of the whiskey decanter Capel used. She so much admired it that she wished to reproduce it in "exquisite, expensive, delicate glass". The couple spent time together at fashionable resorts such as Deauville, but despite Chanel's hopes that they would settle together, Capel was never faithful to her. Their affair lasted nine years. Even after Capel married an English aristocrat, Lady Diana Wyndham in 1918, he did not completely break off with Chanel. He died in a car accident on 21 December 1919. A roadside memorial at the site of Capel's accident is said to have been commissioned by Chanel. Twenty-five years after the event, Chanel, then residing in Switzerland, confided to her friend, Paul Morand, "His death was a terrible blow to me. In losing Capel, I lost everything. What followed was not a life of happiness, I have to say."
Phoebe Tonkin
In addition to attending Chanel events and taking part in several photoshoots in the brand's clothing, Tonkin is a Chanel brand ambassador. For the April 2018 issue of Vogue Australia, Tonkin underwent another photoshoot in partnership with Chanel makeup director Lucia Pica. She was revealed in September 2018 as one of nine women taking part in a digital campaign for Chanel's Gabrielle line of products.
Coco Chanel
Chanel was not aware that the Wertheimers, anticipating the forthcoming Nazi mandates against Jews had, in May 1940, legally turned control of "Parfums Chanel" over to Félix Amiot, a Christian French businessman and industrialist. At war's end, Amiot returned "Parfums Chanel" to the hands of the Wertheimers.
Mark Shaw (photographer)
By the late 1950s, Shaw's career was reaching its zenith. Among the famous figures he photographed were Brigitte Bardot, Cary Grant, Danny Kaye, Grace Kelly, Nico, Pablo Picasso, Yves St. Laurent, Elizabeth Taylor, and many others. For example, in 1957 Shaw portrayed fashion designer Coco Chanel, actress Jeanne Moreau, and model Suzy Parker during a single shoot in Chanel's Paris apartment and fashion house. "Life" published several of these photos with a story on Chanel that appeared in the issue of August 19, 1957 (which was also Chanel's birthday).
Honorine Deschrijver
Deschrijver's designs for women's clothing were distinguished by modernism and originality. She was called the "Coco Chanel of the North". Her career ran from the early interwar period to the 1960s, but she enjoyed her largest success during the Roaring Twenties.
Ernest Beaux
Since Coco Chanel's breakthrough as couturier only took place in 1925 with her design of the little black dress, she felt taken advantage of by Wertheimer, and, after World War II, fought against her own perfumes in creating competitive fragrances under her own name, for instance "Mademoiselle Chanel Nº 1" (1946), sold exclusively in her own shops. In France this was prohibited by judicial action for counterfeiting, but Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and Neiman Marcus in Texas kept distributing, and, when customers reacted with puzzlement, Wertheimer gave in and raised Coco Chanel's share in the company. In 1947, Wertheimer and Chanel made peace, and when Chanel wanted to resurrect her couture house, he even backed her up financially. "Although she made a fortune on the perfume, throughout her lifetime she was convinced that the deal had been heavily weighted in favor of the perfumer and that she had been cheated out of a huge sum of money."
Hélène Chanel
A former model, Helene entered films in 1959 in the film "Les dragueurs" opposite Ugo Tognazzi. Her surname was to have been changed to "Chancel", but an Italian publicity agent misspelled it to "Chanel".
Coco Chanel
Declassified archival documents unearthed by biographer Hal Vaughan reveal that the French Préfecture de Police had a document on Chanel in which she was described as "Couturier and perfumer. Pseudonym: Westminster. Agent reference: F 7124. Signalled as suspect in the file" ("Pseudonyme: Westminster. Indicatif d'agent: F 7124. Signalée comme suspecte au fichier"). For Vaughan, this was a piece of revelatory information linking Chanel to German intelligence operations. Anti-Nazi activist Serge Klarsfeld declared, "It is not because Chanel had a spy number that she was necessarily personally implicated. Some informers had numbers without being aware of it." (""Ce n'est pas parce que Coco Chanel avait un numéro d'espion qu'elle était nécessairement impliquée personnellement. Certains indicateurs avaient des numéros sans le savoir"").
Chanel
In 2007, Maureen Chiquet was appointed CEO. She remained CEO until her termination in 2016. Nick Hochland succeeded Chiquet as CEO.
Coco Chanel
Requested to appear in Paris before investigators in 1949, Chanel left her retreat in Switzerland to confront testimony given against her at the war crime trial of Baron Louis de Vaufreland, a French traitor and highly placed German intelligence agent. Chanel denied all the accusations. She offered the presiding judge, Leclercq, a character reference: "I could arrange for a declaration to come from Mr. Duff Cooper."
Jacques Balsan
Balsan was born on September 16, 1868 in Châteauroux, France. He was the son of Auguste Balsan and Marie (née Dupuytren). Among his siblings was brother Étienne Balsan, the first patron of Coco Chanel, and sister, Viscountess Villeneuve de Bargemont of Davenescourt, France.
Sam Roddick
In December 2001, Roddick opened Coco de Mer in Covent Garden's Monmouth Street with an evening hosted by Dave Stewart, and a fly-poster campaign by Saatchi and Saatchi. In 2004 Roddick was prevented from registering the Coco de Mer name as a trade mark by French fashion designer Coco Chanel, the lawsuit citing the similarity in product range and name.
Chanel
Nevertheless, unsatisfied, the businesswoman Gabrielle Chanel hired the attorney René de Chambrun to renegotiate the 10-per-cent partnership she entered, in 1924, with the Parfums Chanel company; the lawyer-to-lawyer negotiations failed, and the partnership-percentages remained as established in the original business deal among Wertheimer, Badel, and Chanel.
Coco Chanel
At Moulins, Chanel met a young French ex-cavalry officer and textile heir, Étienne Balsan. At the age of twenty-three, Chanel became Balsan's mistress, supplanting the courtesan Émilienne d’Alençon as his new favorite. For the next three years, she lived with him in his château Royallieu near Compiègne, an area known for its wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life. It was a lifestyle of self-indulgence. Balsan's wealth allowed the cultivation of a social set that reveled in partying and the gratification of human appetites, with all the implied accompanying decadence. Balsan showered Chanel with the baubles of "the rich life"—diamonds, dresses, and pearls. Biographer Justine Picardie, in her 2010 study "Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life", suggests that the fashion designer's nephew, André Palasse, supposedly the only child of her sister Julia-Berthe who had committed suicide, was Chanel's child by Balsan.
It bag
The fashion houses of Hermès, Chanel and Louis Vuitton created handbags that became famous in their own right well before the concept of the "It bag" took hold. In 1935 Hermès created a top-handled leather bag called a "sac à dépêches" as part of their leather goods range. In 1956 this design was renamed the "Kelly" after being prominently worn by Grace Kelly. Coco Chanel first created her quilted-leather "2.55" in February 1955. In 1984, Hermès modified another of their designs, the "Haut à Courroies" (originally created around 1900) to create a bag for the actress and singer Jane Birkin. The "Birkin" subsequently became one of the most desirable, widely recognised bags during the 1990s and early 2000s designer bag craze.
Coco Chanel
In 1918, Chanel purchased the building at 31 rue Cambon, in one of the most fashionable districts of Paris. In 1921, she opened an early incarnation of a fashion boutique, featuring clothing, hats, and accessories, later expanded to offer jewellery and fragrances. By 1927, Chanel owned five properties on the rue Cambon, buildings numbered 23 to 31.
Coco Chanel
In 1906, Chanel worked in the spa resort town of Vichy. Vichy boasted a profusion of concert halls, theatres, and cafés where she hoped to achieve success as a performer. Chanel's youth and physical charms impressed those for whom she auditioned, but her singing voice was marginal and she failed to find stage work. Obliged to find employment, she took work at the "Grande Grille", where as a "donneuse d'eau" she was one whose job was to dispense glasses of the purportedly curative mineral water for which Vichy was renowned. When the Vichy season ended, Chanel returned to Moulins, and her former haunt "La Rotonde". She now realised that a serious stage career was not in her future.
Anna Karina
Karina was 17 when she arrived in Paris poor and unable to speak French. She lived on the streets. One day while sitting at the café Les Deux Magots she was approached by a woman from an advertisement agency who asked her to do some photos. She began to work as a model and eventually became successful, posing for several magazines, including "Elle", and meeting Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel. Karina has said that Chanel helped her devise her professional name, Anna Karina.
Coco Chanel
Coinciding with her introduction to the duke, was her introduction, again through Lombardi, to Lombardi's cousin, the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII. The prince allegedly was smitten with Chanel and pursued her in spite of her involvement with the Duke of Westminster. Gossip had it that he visited Chanel in her apartment and requested that she call him "David", a privilege reserved only for his closest friends and family. Years later, Diana Vreeland, editor of "Vogue", would insist that "the passionate, focused and fiercely independent Chanel, a virtual tour de force," and the Prince "had a great romantic moment together".
Coco Mademoiselle
Coco Mademoiselle is a women's perfume in the Chanel collection that was introduced in 2001 for younger consumers. The fragrance was created by Jacques Polge, the nose of Chanel from 1978 to 2015.
Karen Cheryl
Karen Cheryl began her career as a singer in the 1970s and 1980s. Her first single "Garde-moi avec toi" was released in 1975 and her last one "L'Amour Fou" was released in 1991. Her first recordings were released under the name of Carene Cheryl. In 1977, she stated in the television program "Le monde de l'accordéon" that Carene and Cheryl were her second and third names. She later explained at an interview with Philippe Bouvard that it was a pseudonym with a better sound.
Chanel
From the gamine fashions of the 1920s, Coco Chanel had progressed to womanly fashions in the 1930s: evening-dress designs were characterised by an elongated feminine style, and summer dresses featured contrasts such as silver eyelets, and shoulder straps decorated with rhinestones - drawing from Renaissance-time fashion stylings. In 1932, Chanel presented an exhibition of jewelry dedicated to the diamond as a fashion accessory; it featured the "Comet" and "Fountain" necklaces of diamonds, which were of such original design, that Chanel S.A. re-presented them in 1993. Moreover, by 1937, the House of Chanel had expanded the range of its clothes to more women and presented "prêt-à-porter" clothes designed and cut for the petite woman. Among fashion designers, only the clothes created by Elsa Schiaparelli could compete with the clothes of Chanel.
During the Second World War (1939–45), Coco Chanel closed shop at Maison Chanel — leaving only jewellery and "parfumerie" for sale — and moved to the Hôtel Ritz Paris, where she lived with her boyfriend, Hans Günther von Dincklage, a Nazi intelligence officer. Upon conquering France in June 1940, the Nazis established a Parisian occupation-headquarters in the Hôtel Meurice, on the rue de la Rivoli, opposite the Louvre Museum, and just around the corner from the fashionable Maison Chanel S.A., at 31 rue Cambon.
Chanel
Meanwhile, because of the Nazi occupation's official anti-Semitism, Pierre Wertheimer and family, had fled France to the U.S., in mid-1940. Later, in 1941, Coco Chanel attempted to assume business control of Parfums Chanel but was thwarted by an administrative delegation that disallowed her sole disposition of the "parfumerie". Having foreseen the Nazi occupation policy of the seizure-and-expropriation to Germany of Jewish business and assets in France, Pierre Wertheimer, the majority partner, had earlier, in May 1940, designated Felix Amiot, a Christian French industrialist, as the "Aryan" proxy whose legal control of the Parfums Chanel business proved politically acceptable to the Nazis, who then allowed the perfume company to continue as an operating business.
Coco (cartoonist)
Corinne Rey was born 21 August 1982 in Annemasse in eastern France. Under the pen name "Coco" she has published in periodicals such as "Charlie Hebdo", "Les Inrockuptibles", and "L'Écho des savanes". Public figures such as politicians Dominique Strauss-Kahn and François Hollande are frequent targets of her political cartoons. She has won a number of awards for her cartooning.
Maureen Chiquet
In 2002, she briefly joined another Gap subsidiary, Banana Republic and later said that leaving the company to join Chanel was the most important decision of her career. A year after joining Chanel in 2003, she was appointed of president of Chanel in the U.S., responsible for fragrance and beauty, fashion, watches and fine jewellery divisions. When Chanel restructured in 2007, Chiquet became company-wide CEO.
Suzy Parker
After recovering from her injuries, Parker became pregnant and de la Salle left. She said, "He didn't want to be a father. I already hired a nanny... he was gone, history." She gave birth to their daughter Georgia Belle Florian Coco Chanel de la Salle in December 1959, whose godmother was close friend Coco Chanel. Parker named her daughter after her older sisters Georgiabell and Florian and purposely left Dorian Leigh's name off. Dorian and Parker feuded for many years, as Parker was fed up with Leigh's promiscuous lifestyle and her not taking care of her children. A March 14, 1977, "People" magazine article featured Parker trying to launch her then 17-year-old daughter Georgia as a model. However, Georgia modeled only a few times during and after college.
Chanel No. 19
Chanel No. 19 perfume was first marketed in 1971. The number 19 was chosen to commemorate Coco Chanel's birthday, 19 August. The perfume was launched a year before she died. The scent was created by Henri Robert.
Chanel
While Wertheimer remained chairman, Françoise Montenay became CEO and President. 2000 saw the launch of the first unisex watch by Chanel, the J12. In 2001, watchmaker Bell & Ross was acquired. The same year, Chanel boutiques offering only selections of accessories were opened in the United States. Chanel launched a small selection of menswear as a part of their runway shows.
Chanel No. 5
In 1924, Chanel made an agreement with the Wertheimer brothers, Pierre and Paul, directors of the perfume house Bourjois, creating a new corporate entity, Parfums Chanel. The Wertheimers agreed to manage production, marketing, and distribution of Chanel No. 5. The Wertheimers would receive a 70 percent share of the company, and Théophile Bader, founder of the Paris department store Galeries Lafayette, would receive 20 percent. Bader had been instrumental in brokering the business connection by introducing Chanel to Pierre Wertheimer at the Longchamps races in 1922. For 10 percent of the stock, Chanel licensed her name to Parfums Chanel and removed herself from involvement in all business operations. Later, unhappy with the arrangement, Chanel worked for more than twenty years to gain full control of Parfums Chanel. She said that Pierre Wertheimer was "the bandit who screwed me".
Coco Chanel
"I have," she wrote, "an indisputable right of priority ... the profits that I have received from my creations since the foundation of this business ... are disproportionate ... [and] you can help to repair in part the prejudices I have suffered in the course of these seventeen years."