CoCo Biography

Name : COCO CHANEL BIOGRAPHY

Nationality : American

Occupation : Actress

A surprise visitor tapped the door of I Blame Coco’s North London rehearsal room at the end of 2009. As Coco Sumner – the Coco you are blaming – was losing herself in the afternoon run-up to an esteemed charity gig at The Union Chapel with Arctic Monkeys and Richard Hawley, the simian silhouette of Ian Brown loped into view, nodding approvingly in the corner of the room. ‘And he told me,’ says Coco, in a rare moment of self-congratulation, ‘that my lyrics were mega.

Several years passed at school before the young girl would try to make a start. At first she began as a shopkeeper specializing in linens and small wares. Later she would try to sing and dance, with an idea to make a career in the theatre. These attempts would not bring her any luck, with an exception to the nickname Coco acquired at that time. The nickname "Coco" had been given to her by her audience for her songs "Ko Ko Ri Ko" and "Qui qu’a vu Coco".

At the age of twenty-two Coco Chanel met Etienne Balsan, a gentlemen horse breeder and riding enthusiast, and accepted his proposal to live together. She would enjoy her life in a castle, even though she would never get used to her position of an official mistress. What did she really want? To make a career for herself as a modiste – a milliner.

Coco Chanel would soon meet another person who would find a merit in her idea and would help her change her life completely. This was an Englishman Arthur Capel, known to his friends as "Boy". She could have never before imagined herself together with a man who was so enterprising, athletic and, despite his youth, already an important businessman. He helped Chanel to open her first milliner shop in Paris in 1910, and later in 1913 her boutique in Deauville, France.