Coco Chanel

A biographical account reports that after Chanel’s mother died, her father placed her in an orphanage when she was 12.⁵ In the 1910s, when Chanel began her career, customers could choose among about 40 designers, and few showed brand loyalty, according to a biographical account.⁶ Chanel criticised the tightly corseted and heavily ornamented fashions of the early twentieth century.⁷

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) describes a Chanel evening dress from the spring–summer 1923 collection as embroidered by Kitmir, an atelier established in Paris in 1922 by Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna Romanova.⁸ The V&A reports that Chanel’s early-1920s use of embroiderers did not end her production of relatively undecorated clothes.⁸ Black dresses, including many designed by Chanel, received extensive fashion-magazine coverage from 1925 to 1927.⁸

A biographical account reports that Chanel received about 10 percent of the profits from the Chanel No. 5 deal, while the Wertheimer business received 70 percent and Bader 20 percent.^5,6 A biographical account says the outbreak of the Second World War led Chanel to close her business.⁵ In July 1941, German authorities reportedly registered Chanel as a trusted source under the code name “Westminster”; in 1943, she was reportedly tasked with trying to persuade Winston Churchill to negotiate with Germany.³

A V&A exhibition account says postwar interrogation transcripts record three Nazi officials separately identifying Chanel as a trusted intelligence contact.² A report says Chanel had a relationship with Baron Hans Guenther von Dincklage, an attaché at the German embassy.⁴ One account says Chanel’s fashion studio closed when German forces occupied Paris, while her perfume boutique remained open; it also says German soldiers could buy Chanel No. 5 there.⁴

A biographical account says Chanel No. 5 advertisements featured Chanel herself in an opulent setting.⁶ A biographical account notes that Chanel has been depicted in a Broadway musical, the 2008 film *Coco Before Chanel*, and a co-produced ballet.^5,9

A V&A retrospective presented fashion objects alongside documents concerning Chanel’s wartime record, including material about states of Resistance membership and her alleged work as a Nazi agent.^2,3 One certificate described Chanel as an occasional Resistance agent from 1 January 1943 to 17 April 1944.³

The V&A reports that Chanel’s contemporaries were surprised when she began employing embroiderers in the early 1920s; the museum also identifies her atelier as established in Paris in 1922, while another account describes her collaboration with the Kitmir atelier.⁸ The V&A exhibition presented documents identifying Chanel as a Resistance member, but a historian who examined the material expressed serious doubts about that membership and suggested the documents may have been used to restore her postwar reputation.^2,3 A biographical account says Chanel herself described “Coco” as a shortened form of *cocotte*, a French word for “kept woman”; it also notes that some accounts linked the name to a song she performed.⁵

A report says Chanel was arrested by the French Resistance when Paris was liberated in 1944 and released within hours; it attributes her release to Churchill’s intervention, a detail not independently confirmed in the evidence here.⁴ Hal Vaughan’s biography portrays Chanel as strongly anti-Communist and anti-Semitic; Edmonde Charles-Roux said the book showed evidence that Chanel had seriously compromised herself with the Germans.⁴ Some commentators have said that an element of mystery remains about Chanel’s wartime activities.^2,3,4