Simplicity / Passion / Movement / Comfort / Love | Coco Chanel, 1883 – 1971
Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel, 1920
“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”
“I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person.”
“In order to be irreplaceacle, one must always be different.”
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.”
“My life didn’t please me, so I created my life.”
“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.”
Madame Varda wearing Chanel, Vogue, 1924
“Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.”
“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”
“Elegance is refusal.”
“Elegance comes from being as beautiful inside as outside.”
“Fashion changes, but style endures.”
“A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.”
“A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life.”
“A woman with good shoes i never ugly!”
Edward Steichen, Marion Morehouse in Coco Chanel black crepe dress with sequins and fringe, Vogue, May 1926
“Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance!”
“Some people think luxury is the oppsite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity”
“Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty.
But at fifty you get the face you deserve.”
“A woman can be over dressed but never over elegant.”
“I wanted to give a woman comfortable clothes that would flow with her body.
A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed.”
“A beautiful dress may look beautiful on a hanger, but that means nothing. It must be seen
on the shoulders, with the movement of the arms, the legs, and the waist.”
Edward Steichen, Marion Morehouse wearing a dress by Coco Chanel, 1926
“There are people who have money and people who are rich. They are not the same people.”
“Men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness.”
“Fashion has two purposes: comfort and love. Beauty comes when fashion succeeds.”
“A fashion that does not reach the streets is not a fashion”
“Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
“There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.”
“Passion goes, Boredom remains.”
“Sin can be forgiven, but stupid is forever.”
Coco Chanel wearing a sailor’s jersey and trousers, 1928
“Look for the woman in the dress. If there is no woman, there is no dress.”
“Coquetry, it’s a triumph of the spirit over the senses.”
“When I find a colour darker than black, I’ll wear it. But until then, I’m wearing black!”
“Women hide their imperfections instead of accepting them as an added charm.”
“Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence,
but of those who have already taken possession of their future.”
“There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love
than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly. Fashion is at once
a captapillar and a butterfly, caterpillar by day, butterfly by night”
“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”
“Only those with no memory insist on their originality.”
Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel, 1883 – 1971
Coco Chanel, 1910 Costumes for ‘Le Train Bleu’ Les ballets Russes
Horst P. Horst, Coco Chanel, 1937 Boris Lipnitzki, Jewelry designer Fulco di Verdura and Coco Chanel, 1937
Chanel No. 5 perfume packaging, cardboard and paper case,1921
