Coco Chanel; First Ladies...'simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance'

Chanel was born on August 19, 1883. She was the second daughter of traveling salesman Albert Chanel and Jeanne Devolle in the small city of Saumur, Maine-et-Loire. Coco was born in a poorhouse. Her birth was recorded the following day. Two employees of the hospice went to city hall and declared the child female. The hospice employees were illiterate, so when the mayor François Poitu wrote down the birth, no one knew how to spell Chanel so the mayor improvised and recorded it with an "s," making it Chasnel. This misspelling made the tracing of her roots almost impossible for biographers when Chanel later rose to prominence

In 1923 Coco Chanel told Harper's Bazaar 'simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance'. Coco Chanel always kept the clothing she designed simple, comfortable, and revealing. Unlike most designers in Europe, she kept the woman inside the clothes at the center of her creations. "I gave women a sense of freedom; I gave them back their bodies: bodies that were drenched in sweat, due to fashion's finery, lace, corsets, underclothes, padding."[3] She took what were considered poor fabrics like jersey and upgraded them. Chanel's style is popularly associated with the image of the 1920s flapper, a "new breed" of self-confident young women that challenged the established concept of socially acceptable behavior. The flappers demonstrated their independence through new looks and attitude, such as short skirts and haircuts, openly using cosmetics, and being seen to smoke and drink cocktails. Compared to previous generations of women the flappers also showed an increased level of activity, pursuing athletic sports, driving their own automobiles, and going out to nightclubs where they could listen to jazz music and do energetic dances such as the Charleston.