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."
Marie-Hélène Arnaud
The French designer Coco Chanel launched her first post-war collection at her rue Cambon showroom in Paris on 5 February 1954. For the show she approached Marie-Hélène de Rothschild to ask her friends whether they would appear on the catwalk; Chanel had decided to use "personalities", women "with bosoms and hips – with a real shape – they must have elegance", rather than the sylphlike and anonymous models she had use pre-war whose function was to bring attention to the clothes rather than themselves, following Chanel's precept that just as a watch told the time, a model should "tell the dress".