“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” World-renowned fashion designer Coco Chanel spoke these words. She is known as the woman who created the “little black dress”, defied all fashion boundaries of her time, and epitomized the words classy and chic. She was born in 1883, in Saumur France, to a very poor family. Her mother died when she was 12 years old and she spent the next seven years of her life in an orphanage, which was where she learned how to sew. After leaving the orphanage, she worked at a tailor shop, where she met the French millionaire Etienne Balsan whom she had an affair with. He treated her to the nicer things in life and she soon started designing hats as a hobby. She realized that fashion design was a passion of hers, and in 1913 she opened her first shop, in France, where she sold fashionable raincoats and jackets. Over the years, she expanded the types of clothing she offered, opened new shops, and began to become a household name. She died in 1971, at age 87.
Coco Chanel is well known for her cutting-edge, trend-setting styles during the 1920s, her feminine twist on menswear, her ability to make high fashion comfortable, and much more. Chanel started out as a poor orphan child and worked her way up to a respected woman with her name appearing on TIME magazine’s list of 100 most influential people of the 20th century. She was a strong-willed person who didn’t let small setbacks get in her way. Coco Chanel is a great role model for women and girls of all ages. I highly respect her flair for being different in a classy way, and her drive to achieve her goals in life. I would love to meet her…but given her current state, I guess reading articles about her on my computer, at home, will have to suffice.