Word: cocos
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...COCO became a fashion herself. Returning from the Riviera to Paris, her bronzed face launched the suntan vogue. One day she went to the races in a man's trench coat. The next week trench coats were the thing to wear...
...string of pearls to enhance her own designs. To achieve dramatic effects she often mixed these with costume jewelry which she introduced to the world of high fashion. Quick tongued and beautiful ("Like a little black swan," said Cocteau; "like a little black bull," said Colette), Coco had one love affair after another, though she never married. One of her most persistent admirers was the Duke of Westminster, who employed three couriers running between London and Paris with their love letters. When he finally proposed, Coco turned him down: "There have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only...
...asked a perfumer to create some scents for her spring showings. He presented her two series, one numbered from 1 to 5. the other 20 to 24. Highly superstitious, Coco said: "I am going to show my collection on the fifth day of the fifth month. I'll choose No. 5." The elegant, evocative odor lingered, and Chanel No. 5 became the world's most famous perfume. Though she sold the perfume subsidiary in 1924. she still gets a royalty on every bottle sold...
...great virtue of Coco's early (and present) clothes is their straightforward design and use of ordinary fabrics. They can be easily copied, cheaply mass-produced. Copied they were, and Coco loved it, refusing to join the cabal of other Paris designers who tried to prevent style piracy. "Thirty years ago," she says proudly, "I went to dinner at Giro's. I remember counting 23 Chanel dresses in the room. But I was sure of only one: mine. I found that a very pretty compliment...
...with the war coming on, Coco retired. In 1953, to boost lagging Chanel No. 5 sales, Pierre Wertheimer, owner of the perfumes, asked Coco to resume designing. Since then, she has proved that for all the random fads and seasonal excitements, perhaps the surest touch in fashion is still Chanel...