Coco Chanel

born: 19-08-1883

birth place: Saumur, France

died: 10-01-1971

Designer Coco Chanel was born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel in 1883, although she would often claim that her real date of birth was 1893, making her ten years younger. Her place of birth was also something that she sought to disguise. Coco was born in the workhouse where her mother worked, although she asserted that she was born in Auvergne.Her mother died when she was six years old, leaving her father with five children, whom he quickly farmed out to various relatives. Gabrielle adopted the name Coco during a brief career as a singer in cafes and concert halls, between 1905-08.Coco became the mistress of a rich military officer, and then a wealthy English Industrialist, and the patronage and connections that these men provided her with enabled her to open her own millinery shop in Paris in 1910. She had soon expanded to Deauville and Biarritz.Coco Chanel became the first designer to use jersey during the 1920s, and her relaxed, mannish clothes for women soon became very popular with clients, who were tired of the corseted fashions of previous decades.In 1922, she launched the fragrance Chanel No. 5, which remains popular to this day. Two years later Pierre Wertheiner became her partner (taking on 70% of the fragrance business), and reputedly her lover.