Behind the Double C
I can't look at Chanel the same anymore.
The Double C.
An iconic logo. A symbol of timeless elegance.
Ask any woman, and she’ll probably agree.
You might not know Coco Chanel’s face or full story, but you know what it means to wear Chanel.
Initially, I hesitated to look past the double C because I knew Chanel's life was far from one-dimensional. I understood she was deeply flawed and undeniably influential, and I didn’t know how to reconcile my conflicting feelings about her. So, I let the book Coco Chanel: The Pulse of History sit on the shelf.
One day, curiosity got the best of me. As a fashion lover, Chanel influenced me, and I hoped reading her story might ease the tension I felt about her. I thought I’d read a few pages, and if it was horrible, I’d put the book back on the shelf. But once I started, I couldn’t put the book down. I found myself completely invested in her story.
Chanel invented the iconic emblem that represents luxury, sophistication, and belonging. However, behind the logo lies a woman whose life was far from the polished image she sold. As I dug deeper into her past, I found myself grappling with a tension between admiration and judgment. Chanel's brilliance cannot be denied, but neither can the flaws and moral compromises that fueled her rise. So, how do we reconcile the genius of a woman who manipulated her way to success while playing both sides during one of history's darkest chapters? The truth, as it often is, is complicated—and it’s in this complexity where Chanel’s real story lies.
Chanel’s Early Life: The Orphan Who Wanted More
The woman behind one of the most powerful symbols in fashion was once an orphan with nothing. Her mother died young, and her father abandoned her and her sister at the steps of a church. Raised in a convent, Chanel grew up surrounded by loss and silence. As a child, she wandered cemeteries offering scraps of cake to the dead—a haunting image of a girl who didn’t who didn’t know how to grieve.
Her loneliness ran deep. The hard shell she developed wasn’t a personality quirk—it was survival. Chanel learned early that poverty made her invisible. In response, she built a life rooted in the belief that wealth and elegance could shield her from suffering. The double C became her armor—her way of rewriting the story she’d been born into.
The Birth of Chanel as a Brand: From Hats to High Fashion
Chanel’s entry into fashion wasn’t just about aesthetics; it was strategy. At first, fashion was a way to catch the eyes of aristocratic men and carve out a space in a world that excluded women like her. She started by performing in cabarets and living in the homes of the elite, observing, adapting, and learning.
Her breakout moment came when she modified a men’s polo shirt to flatter her slim frame, accidentally creating a signature look. Then she made a hat for herself. When other women asked for one, she saw the opportunity. With the reluctant help of a lover, she opened a modest shop in his Paris apartment.
Around the same time she met Boy Capel, her great love and one of her earliest champions. He believed in her vision and sent his wealthy female friends her way. It’s rumored that the interlocked Cs symbolize Chanel and Capel. But even he, for all his affection, wouldn’t marry her. He hid their relationship for the sake of his political ambitions. Like Chanel, he carried the shame of illegitimacy. Perhaps that’s what bonded them: two outsiders pretending to belong.
When Capel eventually left her for a royal women and died not long after in a car crash, Chanel was devastated—but she didn’t show it. Instead, she poured the pain into her work. As she had in childhood, she turned heartbreak into drive.
The Psychology Behind Her Branding
Chanel’s look was everything she embodied: elegant, boyish, and rebellious. She challenged the rigid codes of femininity. Her cropped hair, jersey dresses, and simple silhouettes gave women permission to move, breathe, and take up space. Her genius wasn’t just in design—it was in perception.
She turned inexpensive materials like jersey into luxury by placing them on the backs of royalty. She flipped class dynamics on their head. Elite women wore the same fabric their maids once did—and they didn’t even notice. That was her brilliance: repackaging the accessible as exclusive. She wasn’t just selling fashion—she was selling status.
There was deep psychology at work. She understood people’s desire to belong, and she leveraged that insight masterfully. Her business model was simple but radical: source cheap materials, sell at a premium, and wrap it all in the illusion of luxury. For example, when a Russian lover gave her real pearls, she made them part of her brand identity—then mass-produced costume versions for the public. Chanel democratized elegance while commodifying aspiration.
Love, Power, and Chanel’s Dark Side
Chanel had a pattern: wealthy, powerful men who would never fully love her. She seemed to thrive in roles that gave her control without vulnerability, even dressing the wives of the men she seduced. That contradiction is telling. Maybe, after watching her mother suffer through infidelity, Chanel came to see the “other woman” as the one with power.
Love, to Chanel, was something to be shaped and staged. She molded herself to fit her partners, but even then, they still left, and she retreated deeper into work. She never seemed to fully believe that she could be loved for who she was, only for what she created.
And yet, some of her choices were more than just emotionally complex—they were morally troubling. During the Nazi occupation of France, Chanel had affairs with high-ranking Nazi officers. Through those relationships, she profited, most notably by seizing assets from ex-Jewish Chanel clients. One story tells of a woman whose family was forced to flee, only to have Chanel arrive with her Nazi lover to take what she wanted. Years later, that woman’s daughter recalled being given a Chanel scarf. She kept it, hiding the logo, because it was beautiful. Chanel’s design was so tasteful, even those who she hurt couldn’t fully resist great design.
Final Days
I hoped her final years would offer some clarity. Instead, they only deepened my conflict. She surrounded herself with staff not out of warmth but to avoid loneliness. She made them stay late, just so she wouldn’t be alone. She had all the wealth, all the power—but no one left to share it with.
When she felt the end coming, she rested in bed and said, “So this is how one dies.” Then she asked her nurse for one last shot of morphine—because she wasn’t strong enough to do it herself. There was no grand reflection, no apology, no moment of reckoning. She died the way she lived: guarded, proud, and addicted to control.
I closed the book, upset. I wanted a Disney ending, where she saw that she was enough, that she didn’t need the lies, the masks, the manipulation. But that ending never came. So there I was, left sitting in my bed, reflecting on Chanel.
My Reflection on Chanel’s Legacy
Chanel sells us a dream: that we can buy elegance, exclusivity, and insider status in a bottle of perfume or a quilted bag. If you walk outside and see a woman wearing the interlocked Chanel logo, I bet you believe two things: expensive and tasteful. She’s amazing at playing with our human need to be included and look a certain way. The branding is so powerful, we often forget to ask who created it—and at what cost.
I don’t look at Chanel the same anymore. I used to see the lie I was sold, and the marketing is so good that sometimes I still buy into it. I still admire her genius, the way she liberated women from corsets and built a fashion empire from nothing.
Not only did she liberate women, but she also showed up in spaces traditionally reserved for men. Back then, it wasn’t common to see a woman having thousands of affairs, shooting morphine every night, buying men extravagant gifts, and running a multimillion-dollar business. Most women were at home raising kids, doing dishes, cleaning, and waiting for their husbands to get back from work. It took real courage to go against the status quo of that era.
But I’m still conflicted. Her ethics were often absent. She lied, manipulated, and aligned herself with whatever power would protect her. She erased the truth about her childhood and destroyed any documentation that contradicted her narrative. She wasn't just a Nazi sympathizer—she played both sides to survive.
I won’t be the judge of morality. But if I could say one thing to Chanel, it would be this: I enjoyed reading your real story more than any lie you ever tried to sell me.
How do you feel about Chanel?
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