Churchill's Connections

Coco Chanel

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1883-1971
French fashion designer

  1. Introduction
  2. Stories
  3. Biographical summary
  4. See also
  5. Further reading
  6. References

1. Introduction

‘Coco’ Chanel was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. After her mother died, she was sent to a convent at age 12, where she learned to sew. She became a seamstress and cabaret singer, then began a career in fashion. She was soon at the forefront of transforming women’s styles, launching new clothing types, fragrances and accessories. She had a ten-year relationship with the 2nd Duke of Westminster. Churchill enjoyed meeting her on holidays at the duke’s estates and is said to have intervened to protect her from prosecution for alleged collaboration with the Nazis during World War II.

2. Stories

  • Chanel developed some of her seamstress skills while being brought up in a Catholic orphanage.
  • Chanel became known for transforming women’s fashion and for her fragrance Chanel No. 5.
  • Chanel never married but had numerous relationships with wealthy and influential men.
  • Churchill first met Chanel in January 1927 on a French estate belonging to his friend ‘Bennie’, the Duke of Westminster.
  • Eventually Chanel became tired of her indulgent lifestyle with the duke, saying, ‘Fishing for salmon is not life’.
  • Chanel built a villa on the French Riviera which she later sold to Churchill’s literary agent.
  • Chanel was investigated as a suspected Nazi collaborator but Churchill is said to have intervened on her behalf.

Chanel developed some of her seamstress skills while being brought up in a Catholic orphanage.

Coco told varying accounts of her early years, some of them contradictory. She was born in a poorhouse run by nuns, the third of seven children (two died in infancy). Her legal name was ‘Chasnel’ due to a spelling mistake on her birth certificate. The family lived in a cramped, single-bedroom lodging in southwest France, with their father often being absent as an itinerant street peddlar. At around age 12, when her mother died (possibly of tuberculosis), she and her two sisters were sent by their father to an orphanage, and her two brothers to farms as labourers. The orphanage was part of a convent, where Gabrielle learned to sew.

After leaving the convent, she became a seamstress while also singing in a cabaret. The nickname ‘Coco’ has various possible origins including a play on the French word cocotte meaning ‘kept woman’ but may instead have come from one of her cabaret songs. Her attempts to establish herself as a stage performer were unsuccessful, but her charm and assertive character led to her being noticed by Étienne Balsan, a wealthy textile heir and socialite, when she was 23.* She became Balsan’s mistress for three years, mingling in Parisian high society while pursuing interests such as making women’s hats. She lived in his chateau and learned equestrian skills at his stables that would serve her in good stead for life among the aristocracy.

Through Étienne, Chanel met Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel, a British shipping merchant and polo player, with whom she began a relationship in 1908. She sometimes visited his villa in Deauville, a fashionable resort on the north coast of France, where he kept some of his horses. One day she was cold and put on a large jersey, cutting it up the front to avoid pulling it over her head and adding a ribbon and collar, turning it into a dress. It gained attention and she was asked to make similar pieces for others, beginning her ventures into dressmaking. Later she said that ‘my fortune is built on that old jersey that I’d put on because it was cold in Deauville’.1

* Étienne was the younger brother of aviator Jacques Balsan who later married American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt after her divorce in 1921 from Churchill’s cousin Charles ‘Sunny’ Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough. See Paul Maze.

Chanel became known for transforming women’s fashion and for her fragrance Chanel No. 5.

Prior to the 1920s, women’s clothes were typically made in exaggerated hourglass shapes, using corsets and bodices. Chanel’s more comfortable designs coincided with post-World War I desires for less formality and more practicality, part of the era of ‘flappers’: fashionable young women intent on having fun and flouting conventional behaviour. Some of her designs were derived from less restrictive menswear.

The ‘Chanel suit’ was a simple skirt and jacket, made from tweed or wool, initially popularised by actress Ina Claire in 1924 and later worn by Jackie Kennedy* and Diana, Princess of Wales**. The cardigan jacket had the same basis of comfort and simplicity. The little black dress (‘LBD’), launched in 1926, allowed women of various means to use the same outfit as the basis for a wide range of functions, accompanied by different accessories according to the occasion.

After early success with hats, then clothes, Chanel also began to experiment with fragrances. She was introduced to the Franco-Russian perfumer Ernest Beaux by Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia (see below) and commissioned him to create some new scents. She chose his concoction labelled number five and named it as such. Having a love for the numeral five, she launched it on the fifth day of the fifth month of 1921. The design of the bottle was possibly derived from the shape of her former partner ‘Boy’ Capel’s toiletry or whisky bottles.

Chanel’s other contributions to fashion include the shoulder-strap handbag, tweed hybrid fabrics and the popularisation of a suntan. The handbag design was derived from a military bag, with the shoulder straps freeing both hands. Her tweeds were initially made in Scotland and northern England but became such a staple that she set up her own factory near Paris. She mixed tweed with silk, cotton and other fabrics to create different looks and textures. A suntan had long been viewed as being indicative of the status of a labourer (toiling outdoors), but Chanel helped to transform it in the West into a symbol of moneyed leisure in sunny climes.

* Notably a pink suit, worn at the time of her husband John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

** However, Diana reportedly told a designer in 1996 that she would no longer wear anything with the interlocking double C logo because, for her, it stood for Charles and Camilla. Amy Mackelden, ‘Princess Diana Wouldn’t Wear the Chanel Logo for a Heartbreaking Reason’, Harper’s BAZAAR, 2018.

Chanel never married but had numerous relationships with wealthy and influential men.

Capel financed retail outlets for Chanel’s designs in Paris, Deauville and Biarritz. In 1918 he married Diana Wyndham (nee Lister), but it seems that his intimate relationship with Chanel continued. He may have been travelling to see her when he was killed in a car crash the following year.

In 1923, Chanel met Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, in Monaco. Chanel and the duke began a 10-year affair, during which he provided her with a home in Mayfair, London, some land on the French Riviera and an array of expensive jewellery and artwork. Fabulously wealthy, he owned the Eaton Hall family seat in Cheshire, other large estates in the UK and overseas, two yachts and numerous Rolls Royces. In the City of Westminster, London, where he was a major property owner, many of the lampposts have a stylised ‘W’ next to two interlocking C’s that resemble Coco Chanel’s self-designed logo. Although it is sometimes thought that this represents the relationship between the two, the design is simply an abbreviation for ‘Westminster City Council’.

The duke was married four times, including twice during his relationship with Chanel, while also being involved with other mistresses. Likewise, Chanel’s relationships were not exclusive. The first three years of her affair with the duke overlapped with her romance with the French poet Pierre Reverdy. The last two years with the duke coincided with her relationship with French illustrator and designer Paul Iribe, who collapsed and died while playing tennis at her villa in 1935, aged 52.

She had a romantic interlude with Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, a cousin of Tsar Nicholas II and a ringleader in the assassination of the mystic Rasputin. Composer Igor Stravinsky and his family stayed at Chanel’s Paris residence for eight months but an affair is unproven, despite Chanel’s claims. The Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) sought her attention at the same time as the Duke of Westminster. Her friendships with artists Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí were possibly platonic. Her close relationship with German diplomat and Nazi intelligence officer Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage during World War II led to later reputational issues.

Churchill first met Chanel in January 1927 on a French estate belonging to his friend ‘Bennie’, the Duke of Westminster.

Churchill was 52 years old and Chanel was 43. She was a couple of years into her relationship with Hugh Grosvenor, known to friends as ‘Bendor’ or ‘Bennie’/’Benny’, from his family crest which includes a bend d’or: heraldic terminology for a golden stripe.

After visiting the Duke’s estate at Eu in north-eastern France, Churchill wrote to his wife Clementine that ‘The famous Coco turned up & I took a g[rea]t fancy to her – A most capable & agreeable woman – much the strongest personality Bennie has yet been up against. She hunted vigorously all day, motored to Paris after dinner, & is today engaged in passing and improving dresses on endless streams of mannequins.’2 Clementine was intrigued, longing to hear more about what she was like.

In May of the same year, Churchill visited Bendor and Chanel at the duke’s Rosehall estate in north-east Scotland. The 12-bedroom house was decorated by Chanel in her trademark beige colour. Churchill visited them again in October, this time at the Duke’s Reay estate in north-west Scotland. He wrote to Clementine that ‘“Coco” is here in place of Violet [the duke’s wife]. She fishes from morn till night, & in 2 months has killed 50 salmon. She is v[er]y agreeable – really a g[rea]t & strong being fit to rule a man or an Empire.’3

Churchill kept in touch over the years including dining with her in her suite at the Ritz Hotel when visiting Paris. The French poet Jean Cocteau attended one such dinner, shortly before Edward VIII’s abdication, and wrote that Chanel had to console a tearful Churchill in her arms about the demise of the former king.

Churchill’s son Randolph also became friends with her, at a boar hunt with Winston and Bendor in France in 1928. Later she recalled with amusement an article that Randolph wrote about her in 1934 regarding her perception of English gentlemen, published on the front page of the Daily Mail. She reiterated her view to her biographer, saying that the Duke of Westminster ‘belongs to a generation of well-brought-up men. All Englishmen, for that matter, are well brought up, until they reach Calais at least.’4

Eventually Chanel became tired of her indulgent lifestyle with the duke, saying, ‘Fishing for salmon is not life’.5

Looking back, she described her time with the duke as an experiment in satisfying the lethargy beneath her activity. She realised that she could have been extremely wealthy with little effort by remaining as his partner. ‘Take all those Rembrandts’,6 he would say. Everywhere they went on their extensive travels, there would be a fine property owned by the duke. He was one of only two men that she was seriously attached to, the other being Boy Capel, but she moved on, to his great disappointment. ‘I loved him,’ she said, ‘or I thought that I loved him, which amounts to the same thing.’7 On another occasion, she remarked that ‘He [Boy] is the only man I have loved’.8

She grew weary of the duke’s vast retinue of people that would satisfy every whim, concluding that it was all ‘boredom and parasites’.9 They remained friends, however, and she continued to admire his courtesy and kindness. She found him to be extremely shy, hating first encounters and avoiding meeting people in the street: ‘He doesn’t care much for human beings, but mainly likes animals and plants.’10 Nevertheless, she thought he had a delightful temperament. She considered him to be elegant for not owning anything new and for wearing his jackets for twenty-five years. She once bought him some shoes to replace his exhausted ones.

Despite having four wives, the duke had no surviving male heir, as his only son, by his first wife, died after an appendix operation at age 4. Churchill was best man at his third wedding. After the duke’s death, aged 74, his titles made their way in a convoluted fashion to the current (7th) duke, Hugh Grosvenor, godfather to Prince George of Cambridge and the first duke of Westminster with a university degree (countryside management). Most of the family assets, including Eaton Hall, have been held in trust since the 1950s, meaning that when his father died in 2016, descriptions about ‘Hughie’ being the richest man in the world under 30 were incorrect.

Chanel built a villa on the French Riviera which she later sold to Churchill’s literary agent.

Using the five-acre plot near Monaco given to her by the duke in 1929, Chanel designed and built La Pausa, incorporating a cloister and staircase in the style of her childhood orphanage. It has a five-window motif based on her love of the number five and during her lifetime it contained various models of lions, a reference to her star sign Leo. The main building is 10,000 square feet (930 square metres), with two smaller structures for guests. The property was decorated in a beige colour scheme, with furniture supplied by the duke.

The site had previously been a grove of olive and orange trees in the hunting grounds of the Monaco royal family. The name La Pausa referred to the local legend that Mary Magdalene paused nearby on her travels after the crucifixion of Jesus. High up near the coastline, it looks down to Menton and the Italian border on one side and towards Monaco on the other.

During World War II, Chanel visited the villa occasionally with Baron von Dincklage, who ran undercover operations in France for Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Ironically, the villa was also used by its architect, Robert Streitz, on behalf of the French Resistance and Jewish refugees. He sent coded messages from the cellars, and the gardens became an intermediate point for escape from Vichy France to Italy.

Chanel sold the villa to Emery Reves, Churchill’s literary agent, in 1953, to raise funds for a re-launch of her career. Churchill visited Reves there for long periods during the mid to late 1950s. Reves died in 1981 and his widow Wendy continued to live there until her death in 2007. The villa was closed up and fell into disrepair but was bought by the Chanel company in 2015 and is now used for exclusive jewellery sales.

One of the Chanel perfumes in its Les Exclusifs range is La Pausa: ‘A fragrance with delicate and powdery nuances that evoke La Pausa, Mademoiselle Chanel’s villa overlooking the Mediterranean.’11 Another is Boy Chanel: ‘A botanical and woody fragrance inspired by the inseparable bond between Gabrielle Chanel and Boy Capel, her first true love.’12

Chanel was investigated as a suspected Nazi collaborator but Churchill is said to have intervened on her behalf.

Chanel lived in the Ritz hotel in Paris from 1937 and remained there during World War II while it was being used by occupying German forces. It was there that she began her relationship with von Dincklage while he was based nearby.

Operation Modellhut (‘Model Hat’) involved a plan for Chanel to approach Churchill to inform him that some of the German establishment sought peace and to persuade him to negotiate terms. Chanel tried to co-opt Vera Bate Lombardi, an English aristocrat and her former business associate. Lombardi also knew Churchill and had introduced Chanel to the Duke of Westminster, a Nazi sympathiser. The plan fell apart in late 1943 or early 1944 when Lombardi denounced Chanel as a Nazi spy at the British embassy in Madrid.

Chanel was interrogated as a suspected Nazi collaborator by the Free French in 1944. She was also interviewed by MI6 officer Malcolm Muggeridge, later editor of Punch magazine. The French police had a file on her as agent reference F-7124, codename ‘Westminster’, but she was released, seemingly due to lack of evidence. She allegedly said to her maid Germaine, ‘Churchill had me freed’,13 later reported by Chanel’s great-niece Gabrielle Palasse-Labrunie. Chanel’s release was possibly facilitated by Duff Cooper, a British diplomat and a friend of Churchill. She moved hurriedly to neutral Switzerland where she remained until 1954, living with von Dincklage for some of the time.

Chanel escaped the taint of ‘horizontal collaboration’ and other cooperation with German occupiers, unlike around 20,000 other French women, many of whom were shaved bald in public at the end of the war. Her friend Jean Cocteau was also accused of collaboration and cleared. The tarnishing of a national icon would have been a major embarrassment to France. Writer and statesman André Malraux claimed that ‘from this [twentieth] century in France only three names will remain: de Gaulle, Picasso*, and Chanel’.14

Chanel returned to France to relaunch her fashion business, with moderate success. She died in 1971 in her Ritz suite, aged 87. At her funeral, the flowers on her coffin were in the shape of a dressmaker’s shears and on her headstone are five lions.

* Picasso was Spanish but spent most of his adult life in France.

3. Biographical summary

OccupationSeamstress, fashion designer, businesswoman
CountryFrance
CareerLearned to sew at a convent orphanage, aged 12-18. Attempted to become a stage performer. Seamstress then fashion designer, developing clothing, accessories, jewellery and fragrances (from 1910). Launch of Chanel No. 5 (1921). Formation of Parfums Chanel with financier Pierre Wertheimer (1924). Launched ‘little black dress’ (1926). Closed her clothing business (1939). Recommenced business with Pierre Wertheimer (1954-71).
Born19 August 1883, in a poorhouse, Saumur, western France (nine years younger than Churchill); her parents married the year afterwards
FatherAlbert Chanel (1856-c.1909), itinerant street vendor
MotherJeanne Devolle (1863-1895), laundrywoman; died aged 32, possibly of tuberculosis, when Gabrielle was 12
SiblingsThird of seven children (two died in infancy):
1. Adrien (1881-1881)
2. Julia (1882-1910)
3. Gabrielle Bonheur, later ‘Coco’ (1883-1971)
4. Alphonse (1885-1953)
5. Antoinette (1887-1920)
6. Lucien (1889-1941)
7. Augustin (1891-c.1893)
EducationConvent in Aubazine, Nouvelle Aquitaine (central France)
Spouse–
RelationshipsVarious, including:
– Etienne Balsan (French army officer, textile heir), 1906-09
– Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel (English aristocrat), 1908-17
– Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (Russian aristocrat), 1917
– Pierre Reverdy (French poet), 1921-26; maintained friendship for 40 years
– Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster (English aristocrat), 1923-33
– Paul Iribe (French illustrator and designer), 1931-35; died while staying at La Pausa in 1935
– Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage (German diplomat, military intelligence), 1942-51
– Others, possibly including: Igor Stravinsky; Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII); Pablo Picasso; Salvador Dalí
Children–
Died10 January 1971 at the Hotel Ritz, Paris, France, aged 87 (six years after Churchill)
BuriedBois-de-Vaux cemetery, Lausanne, Switzerland
ChartwellVisitors’ Book: –
Other ClubNo
NicknameCoco
Height5’6½” (1.69 m)

4. See also

La Pausa villa

  • Reves, Emery

Duke of Westminster’s other guests

  • Chaplin, Charlie

Nazi sympathisers

  • Edward VIII
  • UK Fascist Groups

Churchill’s French connections

Churchill controversies

  • Anti-appeasement

5. Further reading

Chanel

  • Chaney, Lisa, Chanel: An Intimate Life (Penguin, 2011)
  • Charles-Roux, Edmonde, Chanel and Her World: Friends, Fashion, and Fame (Harry N. Abrams, 2005) (official biographer)
  • Garelick, Rhonda K., Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History (Random House, 2015)
  • Madsen, Alex, Chanel: A Woman of Her Own (Open Road Distribution, 2015)
  • Morand, Paul, The Allure of Chanel (Pushkin Press, 2013)[5]
  • Picardie, Justine, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life (HarperCollins, 2010)
  • Vaughan, Hal, Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel, Nazi Agent (Random House, 2011)

Chanel and the Riviera

  • de Courcy, Anne, Chanel’s Riviera: Life, Love and the Struggle for Survival on the Côte d’Azur, 1930–1944 (Orion, 2019)
  • Meslay, Oliver, and Martha MacLeod, From Chanel to Reves: La Pausa and Its Collections at the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas Museum of Art, 2015)
  • Smith, Nancy, Churchill on the Riviera: Winston Churchill, Wendy Reves and the Villa La Pausa Built by Coco Chanel (Biblio Publishing, 2017)

Miscellaneous

  • Quinn, Tom, The Reluctant Billionaire: The Tragic Life of Gerald Grosvenor, Sixth Duke of Westminster (Biteback Publishing, 2018)

6. References

1. Paul Morand, The Allure of Chanel (Pushkin Press, 2013), p. [000].

2. Winston S. Churchill and Clementine Churchill, Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, ed. by Mary Soames (Black Swan, 1999), p. 306.

3. Churchill and Churchill, p. 312.

4. Morand, p. 184.

5. Morand, p. 192.

6. Morand, p. 192.

7. Morand, p. 184.

8. Morand, p. 36.

9. Morand, p. 194.

10. Morand, p. 187.

11. Chanel, ‘Les Exclusifs de Chanel’, Chanel.

12. Ibid.

13. Hal Vaughan, Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel, Nazi Agent (Random House, 2011), p. 187.

14. Vaughan, p. 220.