Why coco chanel ever married

The two hooked up in Paris in the early s when she was residing at the Ritz and he was with the occupying Nazi forces. No lowly foot soldier, vin Dincklage was a member of the German High Command and Chanel's alliance with the Axis was a deliberate one to ensure she came out on the winning side at a time when it looked as if France was destined to be Germany's pet poodle.

When events took a turn and her lover returned to the Fatherland, Chanel secured her safety once more by offering free perfume to each American G. After Coco Chanel's dangerous liaison with Hans Gunther von Dincklage, the fashion designer and any subsequent lovers seemed to lay low. Cats, however, weren't really Chanel's thing. Instead, after keeping her fashion house closed for nearly 10 years after the war — which was not just sensible, but also necessary, seeing as collaborators like Chanel were very much out of favor — she re-opened it again in at age While the French media was still disinclined to embrace her return to haute couture, both Americans and Brits embraced the chic new Chanel suit.

So much so, in fact, that it is still considered a classic nearly 70 years later via Business of Fashion. While Chanel died in , there would ultimately be one more very significant man in her life.

Around the couple - who were both gay - flitted a heady crowd of artists, among them Satie, Braque, Cocteau and Picasso, with whom Chanel had an affair.

Each spring, Etienne de Beaumont organised a month-long series of parties spread across Paris. In addition to the sumptuous dinners, the well-known 'fiendish social tyrant' hosted an extravagant costume ball. In , the theme for the ball dictated that each guest should arrive in costume but 'leave exposed that part of one's body one finds the most interesting'. Hedonism gripped Paris with the fervour of a new religion - and alcohol and drugs particularly cocaine and morphine were bountiful.

At one event held on the day before New Year's Eve , at Chanel's shop on Rue Cambon, the party started out civilly enough with a buffet in the fitting rooms, only to degenerate into debauchery.

One of the composers of the group known as Les Six 'cracked his fingers on the piano, and there was blood running down the keyboard', remembered one observer.

Throughout this time Chanel's closest female friend was Misia Sert, described by the writer Paul Morand, later the author of Chanel's memoirs, as a 'collector of geniuses, all of them in love with her'.

Chanel had first met Misia, a pianist whose third husband was the Spanish painter Josep Maria Sert, in After all, Misia said, referring to Chanel: 'One could say that it is easy to help a beautiful diamond to shine. Still, it was my privilege to help it emerge from its rough state, and - in my heart - to be the first person dazzled by its brilliance.

It was also obvious that Misia had a very serious issue with drugs. One day the two women were walking down the street and Misia took a syringe from her handbag and injected herself in the leg. Chanel was appalled. It would have been particularly easy for Chanel to lose herself in parties after the breakdown of her relationship with Boy Capel - in he married Diana Wyndham, a daughter of Lord Ribblesdale - and then his death, in a car accident, in December Although Chanel was rich in her own right, this was nothing compared to the vast wealth of the 2nd Duke of Westminster, one of Europe's richest men and known to his friends as Bend'Or from the family coat of arms.

His seduction techniques included sending salmon, which he had caught in Scotland, by plane to be delivered to Coco in Paris, together with fresh flowers and fruit grown at his house, Eaton Hall. But she was far from intimidated by his wealth or social connections, and her insouciance attracted him even more.

The Duke introduced her to Winston Churchill, who regularly went salmon fishing with the couple at his friend's vast estate, Reay Forest, in Scotland. The house, near Monaco, was described by US Vogue editor Bettina Ballard as 'the most comfortable, relaxing place I have ever stayed in'.

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