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To achieve success and to be able to rub shoulders with influential people in high society, Coco Chanel understood the power of "what people will say". Jealous of a past that tormented her, she created a mystique about her origins. She invented events that never happened and hid painful details of her childhood: her days in the orphanage, her father's abandonment and her relationship with her two brothers, whom she stopped seeing when they were young. However, among other omissions, Gabrielle Bonheur - that was her real name - also failed to give credit to the person who helped her create her empire: she never mentioned Antoinette Chanel's contribution to the start of the maison. After the tragic death of her younger sister in Buenos Aires, she never even mentioned her name again.
The Chanel sisters
Jeanne Devolle, died in 1885, only 31 years old. She worked as a laundress. Albert Chanel, a traveling salesman, was left a widower with five children. They were three women, Julia-Berthe, Gabrielle Bonheur and Antoinette, and two boys, Alphonse and Lucien. The third child, Augustin, did not survive the birth.
Albert Chanel soon realized that he could not take care of his children. He sent the boys to work on a farm and abandoned the girls in the orphanage of the Abbey of Aubazine. The two branches grew up separately, without contact. The girls were trained as pupils and rigorously taught to sew and embroider by hand.
When she turned 18, Gabrielle Bonheur was sent to the religious boarding school in the town of Moulins, where she deepened her knowledge in the art of sewing. At the same time, she earned her first money as a singer at the cabaret La Rotonde. There she adopted her definitive name: Coco Chanel.
The fascinating life of the most...