Coco Chanel and her apartment in Paris
Gabrielle Chanel's childhood was spent in poverty. After the death of her mother at the age of 11, she found herself in a convent orphanage. The black and white robes of the nuns. Stone staircases. Stained glass windows with intertwined letters. There, the girl learned to sew and quickly realized a simple thing: the world is not going to give her anything for free.
From the age of 18, she started singing in cheap cabarets. One of the popular songs in her repertoire is KoKoRiKo, which reads "kukareku" in Russian. Hence the nickname Coco. By day, Chanel sewed, working in an atelier. At night, she sang. She met a man. He gave her money for her first boutique. Then she opened a hat store. Then another boutique, and another.
She created trends. She liberated women from corsets. She introduced knitwear. Comfortable jackets. Little black dresses. And the idea that luxury could be relaxed. Business was booming.
By the age of 35, Coco Chanel had bought an entire building at 31 rue Cambon in Paris. On the first floor she planned a boutique, on the second floor - atelier, on the third floor - her apartment of 220 meters.
Four rooms. Gold and mirrors. Headless Venus of the first century. A bust of a deer. A toad into whose mouth Chanel stuffed a broken chandelier lens. For good luck.
Every detail is her code. There's a lot of lions in the interior because Chanel is a Leo. Ears of wheat as a symbol of abundance. Camellias are her favorite flower. Odorless, so as not to argue with perfume. A crystal chandelier she designed herself. The chandelier is assembled from camellias, lions, fives and double S's. Coco believed that crystal was therapeutic.
Chanel hosted Dali, Stravinsky, Elizabeth Taylor, and Picasso in her apartment. Dali gave her a crystal ball. The Duke of Westminster, her lover, gave her gold boxes. He once showed up at her door disguised as a courier with a bouquet of flowers the size of a closet.
The desk in the study still has scratches from her pencil. Nothing has been moved since her death. In 2013, the French Ministry of Culture designated the apartment as a historical monument.
Coco hated doors. She felt that an open door was a symbol of leaving and separation. So she skillfully hid them behind luxurious Chinese Coromandel screens. She had thirty of them in her collection.
A famous part of the apartment is the mirrored staircase. During Coco Chanel's shows, she would sit in hers and watch the guests through the reflections while remaining inconspicuous. Controlling the stage without going on stage - that was the whole Chanel thing.
Over time, Coco took control of the entire stretch of street. She acquired the houses from numbers 23 to 31. In the center of Paris, she assembled her own kingdom.
No bedroom in her apartment. For thirty years, she slept across the street in suite number 302 of the Ritz Paris Hotel across the street.
In the mornings, she would call the boutique and ask them to spray Chanel No. 5 in the apartment by the time she arrived. Then she'd cross the street. Climb the mirrored staircase. Breathe in the scent of her favorite perfume. And work. Work. Work.
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