It was a silly question. Because of course, I would love to see Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel’s atelier. Over lunch at The Ritz in Paris, the chic executives of Chanel – Veronique Savoure, Claire Chassard-Grio and Christine Dagousset – told me about the Chanel House just a few steps away.
They were also telling me about Hydramax, Chanel’s latest beauty product, but oh so sorry, my mind was focused on something else. Images flashed in my mind – Chanel with her layers of pearls, her famous scents, her quilted bags that have become the signature items of this fashion icon.
More than just a designer, Chanel was one of the few haute couture figures who had a profound influence in the fields of art and culture.
Andre Malroux wasn’t exaggerating when he said, "Chanel, together with De Gaulle and Picasso, are the greatest figures of our age."
Her life story, her success and her nonstop failures in love comprise one of the great stories of modern times. Chanel is the original feminist – the fearless genius who dared defy conventions even if people raised their eyebrows.
Born into French peasantry in 1883 and raised in a convent orphanage, Chanel became a fashion innovator through sheer talent, guts and hard work, and yes, you could say luck in meeting the right people at the right time.
She was helped by the men in her life, all rich if not powerful. There was Etienne Balsan, a rich cavalry officer; Boy Capel ("Boy" is not an exclusively Pinoy nickname, after all), a brilliant Anglo-French tycoon; Duke Dmitri, a nephew of Tsar Nicholas II; and Paul Iribe, satirist, illustrator and furniture designer.
Chanel wasn’t a dashing beauty, with her heart-shaped face and wide lips, but she charmed all these men with her brilliance.
"I was the first twentieth-century woman," she declared.
"I invented sportswear," she said.
But more than that, Chanel bobbed women’s hair and their skirts too, removed their corsets, put them in bathing suits, taught them to get tanned under the sun and introduced slacks.
She popularized dark-toed sling shoes, the little black dress (Vogue declared it as the new uniform of the modern woman), quilted handbags with gold chains, braid-trimmed two-piece suits with brass buttons, and costume jewelry.
Chanel showed women how to layer pearls as well as costume jewelry, and yet achieve a powerful look of simplicity.
"People laughed at the way I dressed, but that was the secret of my success," Chanel once said.
In the 1920s, Chanel launched Chanel No. 5, the first couture perfume, in a square cut Cubist-inspired Art Deco bottle.
Yes, 5 was her first lucky number. When she asked chemist Ernest Beaux to concoct the fragrance of her choice ingredients, he came up with five different versions in five different bottles. She chose bottle No. 5, and that is the name of her scent that remains a bestseller to this day.
Her other scents took the names of more "lucky" numbers. In 1910, she opened a shop at 21 Rue Cambon, then 27, 29 and 31 of the same street.
Chanel was the first haute couture designer to work in ballet, theater and film.
She supported Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the plays of Jean Cocteau, the music of Ivor Stravinsky and the poetry of Pierre Reverdy. She was a friend to artists like Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. She worked with film greats Sam Goldwyn, Jean Renoir, Lucchino Visconti and Alain Resnais.
She was declared the high priestess of classicism and even after her death in 1971, Chanel continued to be a major influence in fashion. The house of Chanel was dormant for a decade (quite a long period of mourning) but was later relaunched under Karl Lagerfeld.
As I went up the famous winding staircase of Chanel’s apartment, I imagined how at the height of her success all five floors hummed with the sound of sewing machines. Models would line up all in a row before her stern eyes on the first floor where rows of chairs still stand.
In her sala, her books, her exquisite chairs, her favorite artworks are all still there, a rich testimony to her love for the arts and culture.
One more floor up, cabinets with glass doors are a showcase of the latest Chanel collections.
Would you like to try on a Chanel gown? The chic Chanel guides ask.
Of course, I wouldn’t. One gown, so richly beaded, was too heavy. Another one, a white swirling gown, was light but so delicately immaculate, looking at it was enough pleasure.
Would you like to stay for a day at the Chanel apartment? They never asked, but certainly I would have said yes. One hour was certainly not enough to absorb one woman’s creative eternity.