3. The Ugly Side of a Fashion Icon
However she acquired her iconic name, Gabriel Bonheur Chanel revolutionized the fashion business as Coco Chanel, and inspired millions. Less known about her is she was a rabid anti-Semite, an admirer of Hitler, and a Nazi collaborator who worked as a spy for the Germans in WWII. Coco Chanel had long been a reactionary and anti-Semite and got on well with others who disliked Jews. In 1923, she began a ten-year affair with Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, one of the world’s richest men at the time, and a rabid anti-Semite.
In the 1930s, Coco Chanel began a relationship with an illustrator named Paul Iribe, and financed his monthly journal, a reactionary anti-republican and anti-Semitic rag. She often stated that she believed that the Jews were a threat to Europe. As such, it is no surprise that Chanel got on well with the Nazis and collaborated with them when they conquered France in 1940. In the years of occupation, Chanel lived in Paris’ Hotel Ritz, where many high-ranking German military and Nazi officials dwelt.
