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."
Misia Sert
The Serts’ social set included bohemian elites and the upper levels of society. It was a libertine group, rife with emotional and sexual intrigues—all fueled by drug use and abuse. Misia Sert had an enduring association with couturiere Coco Chanel, whom she met at the home of actress Cécile Sorel in 1917. Sert provided Chanel with the emotional support the bereaved woman needed following the death of her lover, Arthur Capel, on 22 December 1919, in an automobile accident. It is said that theirs was an immediate bond of like souls, and Sert was attracted to Chanel by "her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled everyone." Both women, convent bred, maintained a friendship of shared interests, confidences and drug use.