The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2021 - Issue 29

C oco C hanel L iving W ith Jada Brookes discovers the intriguing story of Coco Chanel’s childhood, lovers, thriving fashion empire and properties through Caroline Young’s Living with Coco Chanel. bitebookreview M uch has been written about the legendary French cou- turier Coco Chanel, from her turbulent childhood (although she never gave the full details) to her thriv- ing fashion empire. Living with Coco Chanel by Caroline Young provides a detailed account of the couturier’s childhood, her rise from hat maker to iconic fashion designer, her lovers and her properties. This fantastic book takes you by the hand and revisits Gabrielle Chanel’s life from her birth in August 1883 to her death in January 1971. Immediately you are struck by Gabrielle’s poverty-stricken child- hood, whose charmer father, Albert, seduced and impregnated her mother, Jeanne, then tried to run away and shun responsi- bility. He finally married Jeanne after Gabrielle and her older sis- ter Julie-Berthe were born and had three more children. Talking about her early life, she told a journalist, “I was born on a jour- ney. My father was not there. That poor woman, my mother, had to go looking for him. It’s a sad story and very boring - I’ve heard it so many times.” Moving from town to town, the family often stayed in cold lodgings that would eventually affect Jeanne’s health. After her death from asthma and tuberculosis in February 1895 and her husband’s refusal to take responsibility for his five children, Ga- brielle and her sisters were sent to an orphanage convent at the nearby Aubazine abbey, and her brothers lived with farmers. It is no wonder Gabrielle substituted the nuns at the convent for two strict aunts dressed in black in her revisionist accounts. The Aubazine convent contributed to many of Coco Chanel’s signature pieces, including her black, white and beige colour scheme. “White stood for the clean sheets in old chests and beige for the natural sandstone and wood. The nuns walked the white corridors in their black and white habits, with the girls in their own black skirts and white blouse uniform.” The stone mosaic created by monks hundreds of years before, depicting moons, stars and crosses, later manifested in Chanel’s jewellery collec- tions. Gabrielle’s venture into avant-garde circles is fascinating. After receiving permission from the Mother Superior, she worked with her aunt Adrienne as a sales assistant of a lingerie shop, the House of Grampayre, on rue de l’Horloge. She met Étienne Balsan, an officer completing his military training in Moulins, whose wealthy family owned a thriving textile company. He in- troduced her to a whole new world that would eventually lead her into high society and a fashion career. Through Étienne, she discovered courtesans (renowned prosti- tutes) and met actresses Gabrielle Dorziat and Suzanne Orlan- di, and opera singer Martha Davelli. She borrowed items from men's wardrobes to be different from the society women, visited Galeries Lafayette in Paris where she purchased basic straw boat- er hats and decorated them with ribbons and hatpins. She per- suaded Étienne to allow her to use his Parisian bachelor apart- ment to sell her hats that were getting popular with the ladies. She also met Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel, the love of her life. “The young man was handsome, very tanned and attractive,” she told long- time friend Paul Morand. “More than handsome, he was magnif- icent. He rode bold and very powerful horses. I fell in love with him.” You feel her intense love and heartbreak when his family