Gabrielle Chanel was born the 19th of August in 1883 in Saumur in France.

When she was 12, her mother died and her father left the family a short time after.

She spent seven years in a Catholic orphanage in Corrèze.

After that, she worked in a shop, and she began a carrier of singer in a musichall. Her public, constituted of military officers, gave her the nickname of Coco, which she will never leave.

She started making hats, which were copies of the ones she makes for herself and her friends.

She didn't have any materiels or knowledge, so she just bought simple hats and araanged them.

She encountered such a success that she asked her tant and her sister to help her.

She achieve to impose her new and very classy style.

In 1909, Arthur Capel (called Boy) lent her enough money to open her first own shop in Deauville. She moved to Biarritz and after to Paris.

She never married. For more than 30 years, Gabrielle Chanel made the Hôtel Ritz Paris her home, even during the Nazi occupation of Paris. During that time she was criticized for having an intimate affair with Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a German officer who arranged for her to remain in the hotel. She also maintained an apartment above her Rue Cambon Couture House and owned Villa La Pausa in the town of Roquebrune on the French Riviera.