Born as Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel in Saumur, Southern France in 1883, the origins of the name "Coco" was rather vague.
She started her designer career by designing hats. From her first shop in 1910 at 21 rue Cambon, she rose to become a famous and pioneering French fashion designer.
She's well-known for inspiring practical wear for women and she was a great influence on haute couture. Coco also popularized the "little black dress". Coco was probably most remembered for her Chanel No. 5 perfume which was and still is a popular perfume for women today.
Her style was about simplicity and comfort and she told Harper's Bazaar in 1923 that "simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance."
A fashion that does not reach the streets is not a fashion.
-- Coco Chanel
A woman has the age she deserves.
-- Coco Chanel
Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
-- Coco Chanel
Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.
-- Coco Chanel
Fashion fades, only style remains the same.
-- Coco Chanel
Fashion has become a joke. The designers have forgotten that there are women inside the dresses. Most women dress for men and want to be admired. But they must also be able to move, to get into a car without bursting their seams! Clothes must have a natural shape.
-- coco Chanel
Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.
-- Coco Chanel
Fashion is made to become unfashionable.
-- Coco Chanel
Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.
-- Coco Chanel
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
-- Coco Chanel
In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.
-- Coco Chanel
I don't understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little - if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that's the day she has a date with destiny. And it's best to be as pretty as possible for destiny.
-- Coco Chanel
I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.
-- Coco Chanel
I've never done anything by halves.
-- Coco Chanel
Innovation! One cannot be forever innovating. I want to create classics.
-- Coco Chanel
Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.
-- Coco Chanel
Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.
-- Coco Chanel
Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them.
-- Coco Chanel
Success is often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.
-- Coco Chanel
The best color in the whole world, is the one that looks good, on you!
-- Coco Chanel
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.
-- Coco Chanel
There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time!
-- Coco Chanel
Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.
-- Coco Chanel
"Where should one use perfume?" a young woman asked. "Wherever one wants to be kissed," I said.
-- Coco Chanel
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