Gabrielle Bonheur Coco Chanel Documentary
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00:00 The Rich Rabbit
00:07 Every woman alive loves Chanel.
00:10 The slogan speaks for itself.
00:13 Chanel is the most desired brand among women and there are no second thoughts about it.
00:19 Every woman wants Chanel and it is a fact as clear as a bright sunny day.
00:25 But the journey of Chanel wasn't that easy, there were many ups and downs and downright
00:30 failures.
00:31 Let's start from the very beginning.
00:36 It all started in 1909 when Gabrielle Chanel opened a millinery shop at 160 Boulevard,
00:43 Malaiseurbe, the ground floor of the Parisian flat of the socialite and textile businessman
00:49 Etienne Balsan of whom she was mistress.
00:53 And because the Balsan flat was also a salon for the French hunting and sporting elite,
00:59 Chanel had the opportunity to meet their demi-mondeine mistresses who as such were women of fashion,
01:07 upon whom the rich men displayed their wealth as ornate clothes, jewelry and hats.
01:14 And so Coco Chanel could sell to them the hats she designed and made, thereby earning
01:20 a living independent of her financial sponsor, the socialite Balsan.
01:27 In the course of those salons, Coco Chanel befriended Arthur Boy Capel, an English socialite
01:32 and polo player friend of Etienne Balsan.
01:36 And as per the upper class social custom, Chanel also became mistress to Boy Capel.
01:42 Nonetheless, despite that social circumstance, Boy Capel perceived the businesswoman innate
01:48 to Coco Chanel and, in 1910, financed her first independent millinery shop, Chanel Moulds,
01:56 at 21 Hauquembont, Paris.
02:00 Because that locale already housed a dress shop, the business lease limited Chanel to
02:05 selling only millinery products, not couture.
02:09 Two years later, in 1913, the Diorée and Biarritz couture shops of Coco Chanel offered
02:16 for sale prĂȘt-Ă -porter sports clothes for women, the practical designs of which allowed
02:22 the wearer to play sport.
02:24 The First World War affected European fashion through scarcity of materials and the mobilization
02:31 of women.
02:33 By that time, Chanel had opened a large dress shop at 31 Hauquembont near the Ritz Hotel
02:40 in Paris.
02:41 Among the clothes for sale were flannel blazers, straight-line skirts of linen, sailor blouses,
02:48 long sweaters made of jersey fabric and skirt and jacket suits.
02:54 Coco Chanel used jersey cloth because of its physical properties as a garment, such as
03:00 its drape, how it falls upon and falls from the body of the woman, and how well it adapted
03:06 to a simple garment design.
03:09 Theoretically, some of Chanel's designs derive from the military uniforms made prevalent
03:14 by the war, and by 1915, the designs and the clothes produced by the House of Chanel were
03:20 known throughout France.
03:23 In 1915 and 1917, Harper's Bazaar magazine reported that the garments of the House of
03:30 Chanel were on the list of every buyer for the clothing factories of Europe.
03:35 The Chanel dress shop at 31 Hauquembont presented day-wear, dress and coat ensembles of simple
03:42 design and black evening dresses trimmed with lace, and tulle fabric dresses decorated with
03:49 jette.
03:50 After the First World War, the House of Chanel, following the fashion trends of the 1920s,
03:57 produced beaded dresses made specially popular by the flapper woman.
04:01 By 1920, Chanel had designed and presented a woman's suit of clothes composed either
04:07 of two garments or of three garments, which allowed a woman to have a modern, feminine
04:12 appearance whilst being comfortable and practical to maintain.
04:17 In 1921, to complement the suit of clothes, Coco Chanel commissioned the perfumer Ernest
04:23 Bors to create a perfume for the House of Chanel.
04:28 These perfumes included the perfume No. 5, named after the number of the sample Chanel
04:34 liked best.
04:35 Originally, a bottle of No. 5 de Chanel was a gift to clients of Chanel.
04:41 The popularity of the perfume prompted the House of Chanel to offer it for retail sale
04:47 in 1922.
04:50 In 1923, to explain the success of her clothes, Coco Chanel told Harper's Bazaar magazine
04:58 that "design simplicity is the key note of all true elegance."
05:04 The success of the No. 5 encouraged Coco Chanel to expand perfume sales beyond France and
05:11 Europe and to develop other perfumes, for which she required investment capital, business
05:18 acumen, and access to the North American market.
05:23 To that end, the businessman Theophile Bader introduced the venture capitalist Pierre Wertheimer
05:30 to Coco Chanel.
05:32 Their business deal established the Parfum Chanel Company, a perfumery of which Wertheimer
05:37 owned 70%, Bader owned 20%, and Chanel owned 10%.
05:45 Personal success of the joint enterprise was assured by the Chanel name and by the cachet
05:51 of Le Maison Chanel, which remained the sole business province of Coco Chanel.
05:57 Nonetheless, despite the success of the Chanel couture and perfumery, the personal relations
06:02 between Coco and her capitalist partner deteriorated, because Coco said that Pierre Wertheimer was
06:10 exploiting her talents as a fashion designer and as a businesswoman.
06:16 Wertheimer reminded Chanel that he had made her a very rich woman, and that his venture
06:21 capital had funded Chanel's productive expansion of the perfumery which created the wealth
06:28 they enjoyed, all from the success of No. 5 de Chanel.
06:33 Nevertheless, unsatisfied, the businesswoman Gabrielle Chanel hired the attorney René Duchamp
06:40 Brun to renegotiate the 10% partnership she entered in 1924 with the Parfum Chanel Company.
06:48 The lawyer-to-lawyer negotiations failed and the partnership percentages remained as established
06:55 in the original business deal among Wertheimer, Bader, and Chanel.
07:00 From the gamine fashions of the 1920s, Coco Chanel had progressed to womanly fashions
07:06 in the 30s.
07:08 Main dress designs were characterized by an elongated feminine style and summer dresses
07:13 featured contrasts such as silver eyelets and shoulder straps decorated with rhinestones,
07:20 drawing from Renaissance-time fashion stylings.
07:25 In 1932, Chanel presented an exhibition of jewelry dedicated to the diamond as fashion
07:32 accessory.
07:33 It featured the comet and fountain necklaces of diamonds, which were of such original design
07:39 that Chanel SA re-presented them in 1993.
07:45 Moreover, by 1937, the House of Chanel had expanded the range of its clothes to more
07:52 women and presented "prĂȘt-Ă -porter" clothes designed and cut for the petite woman.
08:00 Among fashion designers, only the clothes created by Elsa Schiaparelli could compete
08:05 with the clothes of Chanel.
08:09 During the Second World War, Coco Chanel closed shop at Maison Chanel, leaving only jewelry
08:15 and perfumes for sale, and moved to the Ritz Hotel, where she lived with her boyfriend,
08:21 Hans Gunther von Dinklage, who was a Nazi intelligence officer.
08:26 Upon conquering France in June 1940, the Nazis established a Parisian occupation headquarters
08:33 in the Hotel Maurice opposite the Louvre Museum and just around the corner from the fashionable
08:40 Maison Chanel SA.
08:43 Meanwhile, because of the Nazi occupation's official antisemitism, Pierre Wertheimer and
08:50 family had fled France to the US in mid-1940.
08:55 Later in 1941, Coco Chanel attempted to assume business control of Parfum Chanel but was
09:02 thwarted by an administrative delegation that disallowed her sole disposition of the perfumery.
09:11 Having foreseen the Nazi occupation policy of the seizure and expropriation to Germany
09:16 of Jewish business and assets in France, Pierre Wertheimer had earlier in May 1940 designated
09:23 Felix Ămiot, a Christian French industrialist as the Aryan proxy.
09:30 Occupied France abounded with rumors that Coco Chanel was a Nazi collaborator.
09:34 Her clandestine identity was Secret Agent 7124 of the Abwehr, codenamed West Minister.
09:43 As such, by the order of General Walther Schellenberg, the Sicherheitsdienst, Chanel was dispatched
09:51 to London on a mission to communicate to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill the particulars
09:56 of a separate peace plan proposed by Heinrich Himmler, who sought to avoid surrendering
10:03 to the Red Army of the Soviet Russians.
10:08 At war's end, upon the Allied liberation of France, Chanel was arrested for having collaborated
10:15 with the Nazis.
10:16 In September 1944, the Free French Purge Committee, the Ăpureuchon, summoned Chanel for interrogation
10:25 about her collaborationism.
10:28 Yet, without documentary evidence of or witnesses to her collaboration with the Nazis, and because
10:35 of Churchill's secret intervention in her behalf, the Ăpureuchon released Coco Chanel
10:42 from arrest as a traitor to France.
10:46 Despite having been freed by the political grace of Churchill, the strength of the rumors
10:51 of Chanel's Nazi collaboration had made it impossible for her to remain in France.
10:57 So Coco Chanel and her German lover, Hans Gunther von Dinklage, went into an eight-year
11:03 exile to Switzerland.
11:07 In the post-war period, during Coco Chanel's Swiss exile from France, Pierre Wertheimer
11:13 returned to Paris and regained formal administrative control of his family's business holdings,
11:21 including control of Parfum Chanel, the perfumery established with his venture capital, and
11:27 successful because of the Chanel name.
11:32 In Switzerland, the news revived Coco Chanel's resentment at having been exploited by her
11:38 business partner for only 10% of the company, so she established a rival Swiss perfumery
11:45 to create, produce and sell her Chanel perfumes.
11:51 In turn, Wertheimer, the majority capital stock owner of Parfum Chanel, saw his business
11:57 interests threatened and his commercial rights infringed because he did not possess legally
12:04 exclusive rights to the Chanel name.
12:07 Nonetheless, Wertheimer avoided a trademark infringement lawsuit against Coco Chanel,
12:13 lest it damage the commercial reputation and the artistic credibility of his Chanel brand
12:19 perfumery.
12:21 Wisely, Wertheimer settled his business and commercial rights quarrel with Chanel, and
12:28 in May 1947, they renegotiated the 1924 contract that had established Parfum Chanel.
12:37 She was paid $400,000 in cash, assigned a 2% running royalty from the sales of No. 5
12:45 perfumery, assigned limited commercial rights to sell her Chanel perfumes in Switzerland,
12:51 and granted a perpetual monthly stipend that paid all of her expenses.
12:58 In exchange, Gabrielle Chanel closed her Swiss perfumery enterprise and sold to Parfum Chanel
13:05 the full rights to the name Coco Chanel.
13:10 In 1953, upon returning to France from Switzerland, Coco Chanel found the fashion business enamored
13:17 of the new look by Christian Dior.
13:20 The signature shape featured a below-mid-calf-length full skirt, a narrow waist and a large bust.
13:28 As a post-war fashion that used some 20 yards of fabric, the House of Dior couture renounced
13:36 wartime rationing of fabric for clothes.
13:40 In 1947, after the six-year austerities of the Second World War, the new look was welcomed
13:47 by the fashion business of Western Europe, because sales of the pretty clothes would
13:52 revive business and the economy.
13:55 To regain the business primacy of the House of Chanel in the fashion fields of haute couture,
14:01 pret-Ă -porter, costume jewelry and perfumery would be expensive, so Chanel approached Pierre
14:08 Wertheimer for business advice and capital.
14:12 Having decided to do business with Coco Chanel, Wertheimer's negotiations to fund the resurgence
14:18 of the House of Chanel granted him commercial rights to all Chanel brand products.
14:24 In 1953, Chanel collaborated with jeweler Robert Goussens and his job was to design
14:31 jewelry to complement the fashions of the House of Chanel.
14:34 Notably, long-strand necklaces of black pearls and of white pearls, which high contrast softened
14:42 the severe design of the knitted wool Chanel suit.
14:48 The House of Chanel also presented leather handbags with either gold-colored chains or
14:53 metal and leather chains, which allowed carrying the handbag from the shoulder or in hand.
15:00 The quilted leather handbag was presented to the public in February 1955.
15:07 In-house the numeric version of the launching date 2.55 for that line of handbags became
15:13 the internal appellation for that model of quilted leather handbag.
15:20 Throughout the 1950s, the sense of style of Chanel continued undeterred.
15:26 The firm's initial venture into masculine perfumery, Procheminceau, was a successful
15:32 heurte de toilette for men.
15:35 Chanel and her spring collection received the fashion Oscar at the 1957 Fashion Awards
15:41 in Dallas.
15:42 Pierre Wertheimer bought Bader's 20% share of the Parfum Chanel, which increased the
15:48 Wertheimer percentage to 90%.
15:53 Later in 1965, Pierre's son, Jacques Wertheimer, assumed his father's management of the perfumery.
16:01 About the past business relationship between Pierre Wertheimer and Coco Chanel, the Chanel
16:07 attorney, Chambron, said that it had been "one based on a businessman's passion, despite
16:14 her misplaced feelings of exploitation, when Pierre returned to Paris, full of pride and
16:20 excitement.
16:21 He rushed to Coco, expecting congratulations and praise.
16:25 But she refused to kiss him.
16:28 She resented him, you see, all her life.
16:31 Coco Chanel died on 10 January 1971 at the age of 87.
16:37 She was still designing at the time of her death.
16:40 For example, in the 1966-69 period, she designed the Air Hostess uniforms for Olympic Airways.
16:48 The designer who followed her was Pierre Cardin.
16:52 After her death, leadership of the company was handed down to Given Doudel, Jean Chosobon
16:58 and Philippe Gibaud.
17:02 After a period of time, Jacques Wertheimer bought the controlling interest of the House
17:06 of Chanel.
17:08 Critics stated that during his leadership, he never paid much attention to the company
17:12 as he was more interested in horse breeding.
17:16 In 1974, the House of Chanel launched Christie Hors du Toilette, which was designed when
17:22 Coco Chanel was alive.
17:24 Alain Wertheimer, son of Jacques Wertheimer, assumed control of Chanel SA in 1974.
17:33 In the US, No. 5 de Chanel was not selling well.
17:37 Alain revamped Chanel No. 5 sales by reducing the number of outlets carrying the fragrance
17:43 from 18,000 to 12,000.
17:47 He removed the perfume from drugstore shelves and invested millions of dollars in advertisement
17:53 for Chanel Cosmetics.
17:56 This ensured a greater sense of scarcity and exclusivity for No. 5, and sales rocketed
18:03 back up as demand for the fragrance increased.
18:07 He used famous people to endorse the perfume from Marilyn Monroe to Audrey Tautou.
18:15 Looking for a designer who could bring the label to new heights, he persuaded Karl Lagerfeld
18:21 to end his contract with fashion house Chloe.
18:25 Every rich thing has a history and that was the history of Chanel.
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