Every woman loves Chanel, but do you know where Chanel came from?
100 years ago, when a shabby-clad girl walked out of the convent, she would single-handedly create a fashion empire that dominated the world, and this woman was the legendary woman Gabriel Coco Chanel.
She devised simple costumes that freed 19th-century women from the shackles of tights.
Her No. 5 perfume made Monroe use it every night before going to bed.
She was friends with Churchill, and they often fished together.
At the age of 71, she made a comeback in the fashion industry and pioneered a new round of fashion.
What made her grow from an extremely poor French country girl to a world-renowned elegant woman?
What made her fight back all the way and turn her life upside down?
Britain's Sophie Collins debunks Chanel's tough and legendary life in Chanel's biography. Telling you that those who do not defeat you will eventually make you stronger, which is the tenacity of life and the taste of life.
01 Life, the more suffering, the more tenacious
In 1883, in Saumur in the Loire Valley region of western France, an unmarried and pregnant laundry lady gave birth to a baby girl in her work building.
The baby girl is our protagonist today, Coco Chanel, whose father was a tramp.
When Chanel was 12 years old, her mother died, and she and two other sisters were placed in an orphanage in a convent, and she never saw her father again.
Years later, people found that her brand's double C logo was strikingly similar to the graphics on the glass of the orphanage. Even the rings, crosses and five-pointed stars on the floor of the orphanage's corridors have become elements of chanel brand design.
No one knows how she spent that time when she was abandoned as a child, and how she healed herself as an adult or never healed herself of her childhood.
However, the wind blows the grass without folding, and the weak pole is born strong.
As an adult, Chanel came to Paris alone. To earn a living, she also sang in a music café while working as a salesman and a tailor.
During that time, she met Palerson, a young rich second-generation officer. Thus, "Palerson, the most basic sewing in the monasteries, the knowledge of high society," became the first pot of gold in her place.
In 1909, at the age of 26, Chanel opened a hat shop in her apartment in Palerson and began her extraordinary life with her genius instincts about fashion ideas.
However, as she continued to succeed in business, Chanel's private life was one blow after another.
In 1919, her favorite Quimper died in a car accident. The following year, her only surviving sister, Antoinette, died of the Spanish flu.
At this time, chanel's tough background in life once again helped her carry everything.
She worked hard and thorny until 1971, when chanel, 87, died in her suite at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.
Chanel's life was lonely and courageous, and the more suffering, the more tenacious.
02 Feelings, the more twists and turns, the more looking forward to
In the book "The Biography of Chanel", there is such a picture, with 5 colors of the line connecting people close to her, the yellow line is a relative, the blue line is a friend, and the pink line is a lover.
I counted, in this picture, the pink thread is connected to a total of 8 people, 8 people are connected, and she, but she has never been married.
Chanel's first lover, Aétien Palerson, a young second-generation officer of the rich generation, met the romantic Palerson at the beginning of Chanel's love sinus, and took Chanel from poverty to high society.
It was at Palerson's estate that she saw the life of the French nobility and influenced her later tastes, but the two did not get married.
Chanel's second term, and also in Chanel's books and movies, is a stroke of great color, Arthur Bowie Quimper, the mercurial son of the British career tycoon, who gave Chanel great support, but did not marry her.
According to the book, Chanel lost Quimper twice, first because he married someone else and second because he was killed in a car accident.
Because she lost Quimper, she designed a small black dress and a pearl necklace, and she asked women all over the world to wear a small black dress with her to pay tribute to her beloved.
A love affair with the Duke of Westminster began in 1925. The second Duke of Westminster, nicknamed "Bend", is known as the richest man in Europe. He was often with Chanel, which had a subtle influence on her career.
Regarding the rejection of the Duke of Westminster's marriage proposal, chanel famously said, "There are too many duchesses in the world, and Chanel has only one." ”
In her old age, Chanel mentioned that if she had said such a vulgar thing at the time, the Duke of Westminster would have laughed at her.
Some people may think that Chanel's emotional experience is too much, but people are different, and the attitude towards feelings is the same.
Love can be "I still want to marry you in the next life"
Love can also be "a lifetime of mutual endurance,"
Love can be more like "I am drunk and sleepy and go, the Ming Dynasty intends to hold the piano".
Chanel has adhered to the belief in love throughout her life, the more twists and turns, the more anticipatory, powerful and romantic.
03 Career, the more frustrated, the more tenacious
In 1909, Chanel started her first business, a hat shop. In order to match the hat, several clothing stores were later opened.
After the outbreak of World War I, she saw the business opportunity, threw away her tights, took inspiration from men's clothing, and freed women from skirts.
In an era of frills, lace and breathless corsets, Chanel's designs followed the times, and Chanel achieved commercial success after commercial success.
However, after the fall of Paris in June 1940, chanel's haute couture fashion store was closed and Chanel retired.
As a result of her retirement, the Chanel brand was much less competitive than before, and at that time, the fashion industry had long been monopolized by emerging brands such as Dior.
In 1954, Chanel returned at the age of 71, and Paris laughed at him, a woman in her 70s, how to guide fashionable young people how to dress?
The French media criticized Chanel's latest design, with the bad headlines: "New bottle of old medicine", "Come and get rid of the slag with Coco Chanel." ”
Chanel was devastated by this, but she returned to Campan Street and began to work hard for the next series of designs.
At the age of 71, under a lot of pressure, it is so tough to return to the fashion industry again, and after being deeply shocked, I still work hard for the next series of designs.
It really responds to that sentence: what is visible is tenacity, and what is invisible is forbearance.
In March, a warm response from the United States helped her pull back a round.
Life Magazine featured a large feature in honor of her return.
As a result, she set off another hurricane-like revolution in the fashion industry, for which she was vilified and questioned, but she never flinched, the more frustrated, the more tenacious.
After Chanel's death, her career was taken over by Lafayette Karl Lagerfi, who lived up to expectations and pushed Chanel to another peak.
Today, Chanel's fashion kingdom has stood firm after two centuries of ups and downs, and the voices that question her have long been drowned out by the flood of time.
04 written at the end
Former French Minister of Culture André Malraux said: "In 20th-century France, there were three people who will go down in history: Charles de Gaulle, Picasso, chanel. ”
Today, more than 100 years later, girls still use a lipstick and bag bearing her name as a reward for themselves.
Whenever I see a girl in a suit and striding forward, I want to say, "Very good, this is very Chanel."
I thought that everyone could get some inspiration from the life of Coco Chanel.
Wonder how she came from a poor background but created a luxury brand;
Wonder how she sold the female philosophy about beauty, about independence, to the world;
Want to know the secret past between her and many lovers;
Want to know the little black dress, the No. 5 perfume, the double C logo, the camellia...
You need a quiet afternoon, a cup of tea, a copy of chanel.