4. How This Fashion Icon Got Her Name
Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel (1883 – 1971) dominated Paris’ haute couture scene for six decades as its most prominent fashion designer. She came up with elegant casual designs that killed off uncomfortable nineteenth styles such as petticoats and corsets. Her innovations include the “little black dress“, costume jewelry, the Chanel suit, and quilted purses. The most famous item associated with her name, however, is the first perfume she launched, Chanel No. 5. When Time magazine published its list of 100 most influential people of the twentieth century, Coco Chanel was the only fashion designer to make the cut.
Gabrielle claimed that Coco was a nickname given her by her father. However, that is probably one of many untruths she made up about her family background. She reportedly got the name in her years as a cabaret singer, when she often performed a then-popular song called Who Has Seen Coco? Other accounts have it that it was a play on cocotte, the French term for a mistress. Yet another version has it that she was “called Coco because she threw the most fabulous cocaine parties in Paris“.
