Paris

February 5, 1954

The herd gathers below. I can hear them, all the journalists and eager celebrities, and select critics who received my embossed invitation. I hear their excited voices, a buzz that creeps up the mirrored staircase to where I wait in my disheveled atelier.

About me, the twelve models are already dressed in my new creations, wreathed in clouds of cigarette smoke and my signature perfume. I’ve asked for silence, as I lay on my back checking their hem lengths and snipping at stray threads. I cannot think when they chatter, but there is no stopping them. They tug the jeweled belts of my black gowns, clanking their bracelets and clicking their pearls; they reflect the agitation I feel but cannot show.

I rise to my feet, letting my scissors dangle on their ribbon around my neck. I know the speculation going on below: Will she do it? Can she do it? She is seventy-one. She hasn’t designed a dress in fifteen years. After falling so low, how can she possibly rise again?

How, indeed.

None of this is new to me. I have faced it all before. The expectation of failure, the craving for adulation; these are the hallmarks of my life. I light another cigarette and survey the models before me. “You,” I tell a dark-haired girl who reminds me of myself at her age. “Too many bracelets. Remove one.” Even as she flushes and does as I ask, I hear my beloved Boy whisper in my ear: “Remember, Coco, you’re only a woman.”

I often forget it. Only a woman who must continue to reinvent herself, if she is to survive.

I catch sight of myself in one of the room’s mirrors—my gypsy skin and mouth red with lipstick; my thick brows and flashing gold-brown eyes, my body all angles and edges in my braided pink suit. There is nothing left of the pliant skin of my youth. And my hands, covered in precious rings, are raw as a stone-maker’s, knotted, marred by a thousand needle pricks—the hands of the Auvergne peasant I am at heart, the foundling, the orphan, the dreamer, the schemer. My hands reflect who I am. I see in them the struggle that has always existed between the humble girl I once was and the legend I deliberately created to hide my heart.

Who is Coco Chanel?

“Allez,” I call out. The models line up at the head of the staircase to my salon. I have overseen this ritual so many times before, straightening a sleeve at the last minute, adjusting the tilt of a hat, the fold of a collar. As I wave the models forward, I draw back. I will not make my appearance until the applause has faded— if there is applause.

I cannot be sure anymore, not after all this time.

Coiling my knees to my chest, my cigarettes at my side, I silence the chimes of my bijoux and perch at the top of my mirrored stairs, becoming a hidden spectator, solitary as I have always been.

And as I behold my uncertain future, I will reflect on my past and do my best to tell the truth, though myth and rumor clothe me as much as my signature crêpe-de-chine or tweed.

I will try to remember that for all my triumphs and mistakes, I am still only a woman.

ACT TWO

1909- 1914

21 Rue Cambon

“I want to be part of what happens.”

III

In the summer of 1911, Boy took me on vacation to the resort of Deauville.

He insisted on it, though I did not want to leave my shop. Through a harsh regimen of fifteen-hour days and many sleepless nights, I had begun to prosper. Not meteorically: but my clientele steadily increased and improved in stature, the courtesans and actresses augmented by a select list of society women who embraced Poiret’s modernized dress and found my hats the perfect accompaniment. The grand dames of the haute monde remained enslaved by Worth and other luxury ateliers that garbed them from head-to-toe; they eschewed me. But others with less to lose, hostesses welcoming artists and bohemians to their salons, began to exchange my plain white calling-card amongst themselves. During my remorseless weekly reviews of my accounts, I finally saw I’d turned the corner and could repay Boy some of the debt I owed him. Soon, I would no longer need his retainer on my line of credit.

He didn’t comment on it, though he must have seen the statements that arrived at his office. I appreciated his discretion, his ability to observe my improvement without gloating over it; and when he suggested it was time to take a holiday, I reluctantly agreed.

Deauville proved to be the balm I needed. Situated on the Normandy coast before the English Channel, it was full of glamorous restaurants, hotels, casinos and lengthy promenades. Here, I experienced a relaxation I rarely allowed myself, swimming every day in a daring bathing costume that exposed my arms and shoulders and dining at night in our suite at the Hotel Normandy overlooking the pier.

One night, I asked Boy to meet me for dinner in the casino. We had spent several evenings there in the company of his friends—people I’d never met who also lived in Paris, who welcomed him with a familiarity that made me clench my teeth. Among them were long-nosed, beautiful women shimmering with jewels who eyed me from between languid swishes of their fans. I could practically hear their cruel appraisal of the tradeswoman whom Arthur Capel had seen fit to take up with. I was determined to show them who I truly was.

In a boutique in town, I bought awhite silk dress that clung to the body, supple and tucked high at the waist, a dress for sultry nights, unlike any I had seen in Paris. Pairing it with a length of pearls which Boy had given me, I sauntered into the casino with my hair swept back into a chignon at my nape, held by a piqué band; my long throat and arms tan from the sun, a touch of kohl at my eyes to enhance their luster.

Boy waited at the table. As he saw me approach, he stood with a knowing smile and drew out my chair. Around us, the haute monde dined on caviar and poached salmon in mint sauce. Champagne by the gallon cooled in buckets of ice. I paused, marking my prey, then leaned to Boy and grazed his cheek with my lips. I heard the rustle of alarm ripple through the dining room as if the walls had turned to tissue, an urgent susurration as all eyes shifted to watch me sit, not across from Boy as was customary, but directly by his side.

The rest of our table’s chairs, as I had ensured, were empty.

After dinner, they gathered in the mirrored salon to greet me. I was at my most charming, exchanging witticisms and bestowing smiles as though I mixed with such company every hour of every day. With that uncanny intuition women have for threats, I was besieged at the end of the evening for my card, along with promises that as soon as they returned to Paris, they would call upon me at my shop.

“So daring,” they said, “this bronze color of yours. Do you not fear getting spots from the sun? No? And that dress and pearls—oh, my dear, it’s sublime. You say you make hats? Well, I simply must see them. I’m so terribly bored with the usual.”

When we returned to our house, Boy watched me loosen the knot at my nape and allow my hair to fall. He mused, “You would look exquisite with short hair, I think.”

I smiled. “One thing at a time. We mustn’t frighten the herd too much at first.”

“Frighten them?” He growled, and he stalked across the room to seize me in his arms. “You’re a lioness. You’ll eat them all alive and still be ravenous for more.”

He was right. Those credulous gazelles would not sate a hunger like mine.

But it was a start . . .

In the summer of 1913, I opened my boutique in Deauville, featuring a collection of summer-wear in the very resort where I made my first break-through. I rented a location on rue Gontaut Biron in the center of the shopping district—where everyone on vacation strolled and where no one could miss my white awning with my name Gabrielle Chanel in black letters.

Hiring five local girls who’d apprenticed at dressmaker shops and were fiends with their needles, I left Antoinette and Angèle behind in Paris to run rue Cambon and wrote to Adrienne in Moulins, telling her to visit me. She arrived with her beloved Nexon, beautiful as ever, though dowdy in her old-fashioned black coat, veiled capote and fur-trimmed collar, though it was blazing outside. In fact, that summer proved to be one of the hottest on record. Seeing me about town in my white pleated skirt and open-necked blouse, the pockets of my oversized beige knit jacket stuffed with my calling cards, women of leisure flocked to my boutique in search of relief. I had samples made of unconstructed pullovers modeled on those Boy wore for his polo games, as well as belted jackets, ankle-length skirts that did not require a corset or stays, and simple afternoon dresses made in the jersey I so admired.

I had to field doubtful questions about my fabrics: jersey was almost unknown and knit deemed suitable only for men’s undergarments. I did not relish having to guide dubious customers into the fitting area to help them into the samples, snapping my fingers at my assistants to bring me the straw boaters or soft-brimmed hats that completed my ensembles. But once the client felt the rib-expanding release of her previous garb and beheld in the full-length mirror how different she looked, her expression underwent an equally marked alteration.

“And are you sure, Mademoiselle, it’s not too plain?” Baroness Kitty de Rothschild asked as she surveyed herself in one of my mid-length jackets and jersey skirts. She had arrived in the shop unexpectedly, alerted by a friend. Her entrance had set my heart to racing, for she was one of the most influential women in France, married to the wealthy Rothschild financier, with innumerable contacts who could make my reputation. “I do love how cool and comfortable this is, but it seems so . . . understated.”

I smiled. “Elegance is refusal, Madame. We should be the ones who wear our clothes.”

She tugged at the sample. “It also doesn’t fit.”

I stepped behind her to pull the jacket waist back an inch, no more. She was tall and graceful, with a long patrician face, but her breasts were small and her hips broad, so the jacket should hang loose, to disguise her flaws. “We will make everything for you, baroness. What you see on display are samples. The actual garment will be constructed to your measurements.”

“So, it won’t be mine alone?” she persisted. It was the most challenging obstacle I faced. Like others of her ilk, Kitty de Rothschild adhered to the prevailing sentiment that their apparel must be one-of-a-kind, made by a couturier she visited at a private atelier, not one who ran a shop on the busiest thoroughfare in Deauville.

Drawing in a breath, I said, “Each woman is unique by nature, so why must her clothing be, when by the very act of wearing it, she herself makes it so? My clothes are designed so that you, baroness, will be seen first.”

She went quiet for an interminable moment, while I waited, knowing that if she walked out now, without making a purchase, I would lose the very clientele I desperately sought.

Then, to my relief, she nodded. “Let’s see how this theory of yours works in practice. I’ll take this ensemble and two of your day-dresses in—what do you call that fabric again?”

“Jersey,” I said, feeling a sudden lightheadedness that made me sway.

“Yes, jersey. Two. I trust you can keep my measurements on file, should I wish to purchase additional items? Fittings can be so tedious.” She sighed. “I detest them.”

“Of course. Just a moment and I’ll send Adrienne in to measure you.”

I emerged elated, promising the baroness that her purchases would be ready within the week and then marching into the backroom, where my staff labored at long tables equipped with a sewing machine at each end. “Not one extra fitting,” I said, wagging my finger. “We have the baroness’s measurements. In three days, I expect her to walk out in her new clothes. Am I understood?”

I spent long hours once the shop closed, haranguing my beleaguered seamstresses over a sloppy hem or irregular sleeve, and failed to realize how much an impact I was making until Adrienne drew me outside to point at passersby.

“Do you see it? Gabrielle, there is the baroness de Rothschild in your skirt and day-jacket. With her is her friend, the diva Cecile Sorel, who was in the shop last week, remember? She’s wearing your striped blouse with the blue pullover. And there, and there: Gabrielle, all these women are wearing your clothes!”

I blinked, focusing as if through a haze. Seeing me at the doorway, the women paused, turned to look at me with Adrienne, and then each one inclined her head to me before moving on with perspiring maids in tow, laden with boxes from other stores.

“They . . . they greeted me,” I said, stunned. No one greeted those who dressed them in public; even the despotic Poiret had failed to befriend his clients. “They acknowledged me.”

Adrienne squeezed my hand. “Of course they did. Oh, Gabrielle, it’s finally happening. You are a success! They will tell all their friends. They’ll come in droves and before you know it, you will be received in the best of society, for how can you not? You’re not a man dressing women; you’re a woman dressing your own and you’re as fashionable as they are—more so, because you teach them.” She hugged me, right there in the doorway. “I’m so proud of you. I always knew this day would come. And I’m going to help,” she said, drawing back. “Maurice says it’s time we moved to Paris so I can do something other than wait for his family to let us marry. I’ll work for you in your rue Cambon shop, if you still want me.”

I hated tears. I hated to cry. But I couldn’t resist as I hauled her into the boutique and clung to her. Then, wiping the streaks from my face as she sniffled, I said, “Allez! Enough with this corset. If you want to work for me, you must wear only my style.”