Coco Chanel was born on the 19 of August 1883 in the small city of Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, France.

Her mother worked in the poorhouse where Gabrielle was born and died when she was only six, leaving her father with five children, whom he promptly abandoned to the care of an orphanage. Because of that, the young Chanel spent seven years in the orphanage of the Roman Catholic monastery of Aubazine, where she learnt the trade of a seamstress.

She adopted the name Coco during a brief career as a cafe and concert singer 1905-1908.

While she was working there she met a rich men, Étienne Balsan who lavished her with the beauties of "the rich life", diamonds, dresses and pearls and help her to launch her career, setting up a millinery shop in Paris in 1910, expanding to Deauville and Biarritz.

Then she met another important man, an English polo player, with whom assistance she was able to acquire the property and financial backing to open her second millinery shop in Brittany and to find customers among women of society, and her simple hats worn by celebrated French actresses became popular establishing her reputation.

Soon Coco Chanel was expanding to couture. In 1913, Chanel introduced women's sportswear at her new boutique in Deauville. By the 1920s, her fashion house had expanded considerably, also thanks to Vera Bate Lombardi, the daughter of an important English aristocratic, who became Chanel's muse and public relations liaison to a number of European royal families.

Her relaxed fashions, short skirts, and casual look were in sharp contrast to the corset fashions popular in the previous decades. Chanel herself dressed in mannish clothes, and adapted these more comfortable fashions which other women also found liberating.

Coco Chanel introduced her signature cardigan jacket in 1925 and signature "little black dress" in 1926. Most of her fashions had a staying power, and didn't change much from year to year, or even generation to generation.

In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, the designer closed her shops. She believed that it was not a time for fashion. She took up residence in the Hôtel Ritz Paris and for more than 30 years, Chanel made this hotel her home, even during the Nazi occupation of Paris. During that time she was criticized for having an affair with a German officer and Nazi spy. It resulted in some years of diminished popularity and an exile of sorts to Switzerland.

In 1954 her comeback restored her to the first ranks of haute couture. She introduced pea jackets and bell bottom pants for women and she was very popular among the Americans, who were to become her most loyal customers.

She was still working when she died in Paris on 10 January 1971, aged 87, in her private suite at the Hôtel Ritz

She was buried in Lausanne, Switzerland.