Coco Chanel Essay Example
Coco Chanel: Most influential women’s fashion designer The designs created by Coco Chanel have had the greatest impact on women’s fashion. Her designs are classic, timeless, and still very popular today. All of her accomplishments were because of her hard work, dedication, and being her own person. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was born on August 19, 1883 in Saumur, France. (A+E Television Networks, LLC “Coco Chanel Biography”) When Chanel was twelve years old, her mother, Jeanne Devolle, past away from tuberculosis. A week after her mother’s passing, her father, Albert Chanel, who was a street peddler, abandoned Chanel along with her brothers and sisters. (Savio Dsilva “Coco Chanel Biography & Life Story”) After Chanel and her siblings had been abandoned, they were placed into an orphanage, where they were raised by nuns and Chanel was taught how to sew. (Famous Women and Beauty “Coco Chanel Biography”) Chanel and her sister, Julie, eventually became too old for the orphanage and were placed into boarding school. At the age of eighteen, Chanel had a brief career as a singer, where she performed in cabarets. One night when Chanel performed at La Rotonde, she sang a song about a lady who had lost her dog named Coco; from that point on, she was referred to as Coco Chanel. (L.G &J.C “The Influence of Coco Chanel”) Chanel was performing on another night, when she met a man named Etienne Balsan. She became his mistress and he supported her by buying her lavishing gifts. During the time Chanel was with Etienne, she began designing hats, something she would soon have a deep interest for. (A+E Television Networks, LLC “Coco Chanel biography”) Chanel’s affair with Etienne Balsan ended, and she soon met a new man named Arthur Capel, who helped Chanel to open her first milliner shop, in Paris, France in 1910. (Famous women and beauty “Coco Chanel biography”) Her first milliner store was opened on Paris’s Rue Cambon, where she only designed hats. (A+E Television