Beyond the No.5: The life of the legend Coco

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Envision your most implausible and outrageous wish to come true. Coco Chanel didn’t simply make her fantasies come alive. This woman single handedly revolutionized and transmuted the fashion industry. Epitomizing her own words, “In order to be irreplaceable one must be different”, Chanel eradicated her opponents with her bold and unique ideas. From modest beginnings to affluent ends, it’s undeniable that fashion icon Coco Chanel has fabricated the very principles of our Fashion Industry today and created an everlasting legacy for eras to come.

In the quaint countryside of Saumur, France on August 19th, 1883 Gabrielle Chanel was born. Through her first years of her life, Coco found company with her five siblings. However, Gabrielle’s peripatetic father, Albert Chanel, wasn’t present in her childhood. Unfortunately, with five children and a wife to support, Albert had an extremely hard time compensating time and more importantly money for his family.

Often due to his unstable job as a merchant, Coco’s destitute family was forced to work odd jobs. Gabrielle’s mother stood as the one constant parental figure in her life until she turned 11. In February of 1895, her mother died, parting from her five children. Between work and raising his children alone, Albert Chanel felt like he had no alternate solution but to abandon his children. While her two brothers were put on a farm to work, she and her two sisters were sent to an orphanage, unfortunately, never to see her brothers or her father again. Chanel always chose to avoid the topic of her childhood. Though there is a grey area between the first decade of her lifetime and her early career, Chanel admitted that these years were a huge impact on not only her life but on her simplistic...

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"Coco Chanel." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.

de la Haye, Amy. "Coco Chanel." Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Ed. Valerie Steele. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 14 Feb. 2012.

Marano, Hara Estroff. "The style imperative: style is more character than clothes, more attitude than affluence. It's you making visible your inner self. So forget what you learned about appearance not counting; you can no longer afford to be without style." Psychology Today Sept.-Oct. 2008: 78+. Psychology Collection. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.

Martin, Richard. "Chanel, Coco (1883-1971)." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Ed. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. Vol. 1. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. 475. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.

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