You know her as the embodiment of French high fashion,but Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel has more hidden in her past than she would've admitted during her lifetime.
Her style and design put her at the very tip of Parisian culture,getting her in contact with the top echelon of the European elite.
And yet,in spite of her associations with composers,movie stars,royalty,and politicians,there is one connection that is often snubbed by the history books.
In this video, we'll see how Coco Chanel built a fashion empire that she eventually tried to leverage in service of the Third Reich.
Coco Chanel was an innovative designer with many contributions to the world of fashion and beyond:
Her beginnings,though,were quite humble.
She was born in France in 1883 in poverty and after the death of her mother at age 12,her father sent her to live in an orphanage for girls.
That's where she mastered sewing and after ageing out of the orphanage,she found work as a seamstress,
Now,Chanel was a smart woman and she was born with pretty good looks, so considering her circumstances it should come as no surprise that she found herself a wealthy patron very early on.
Her charms captured the heart of a very rich man: Etienne Balsan,