Coco Chanel

Yesterday I finished reading the 337-page biography “Chanel, A Woman of Her Own” by Axel Madsen (which is a family name in another book I finished reading last night. How weird is that?) Usually I like a book to ‘settle’ on me after I finish reading it and before I write about it. This book bothers me.

Coco, her father’s affectionate name for her, spent her youth in an orphanage in France but never admitting it in her recollections. Her given name was Gabrielle. That was about all of her early years she would admit to, making up various stories to suit her fancy. Her one sister died young. The other as a young, unhappily married woman who Coco refused to send money to Canada to bring her back to France as she so desperately wanted. The two brothers received money from her, at her initiation, to stay in the background and not have it publicly known they were family. After World War II her nieces came to Paris to meet her, curious about this famous aunt of theirs, but she would not admit them to her home.

She married only her business “The House of Chanel” but consented her two great loves, the ones that truly touched her heart, were Boy Capel, killed in an auto accident and Bendor, the Duke of Westminster. Her numerous lovers included other royalty and the wealthy of the day.

She died a multi-millionaire, alone, without leaving a sou to any of her family. She left everything to her butler in a will. Mysteriously the will disappeared. The core of her fortune began and grew in France but she chose to be buried in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Her designs are still worn in good taste today.