Lisa Chaney - Coco Chanel - An Intimate Life

This book took considerably longer than anticipated, and in the process I have neglected friends and family appallingly. Nevertheless, they continued to provide me with their support and good counsel, without which I could not have finished. They have my loving thanks. To Marcus I owe more than I can say.

EPIGRAPH

1 Paul Morand, The Allure of Chanel , p. 143.

PROLOGUE: You’re Proud, You’ll Suffer

1 Paul Morand, The Allure of Chanel , p. 40.

2 Ibid., p. 34.

3 Ibid., p. 41.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid., pp. 20–21.

6 Ibid., p. 56.

7 Ibid., p. 42.

CHAPTER 1: Forebears

1 Jean Cocteau, Past Tense , vol. I, p. 50.

2 Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen , p. 410.

CHAPTER 2: The Bad One

1 Henry Gidel, Coco Chanel , pp. 21–25.

2 Ibid., p. 30.

CHAPTER 3: The Lost Years

1 Lilou Marquand, Chanel m’a dit , p. 45.

2 Paul Morand, The Allure of Chanel , p. 22.

3 Ibid., both references p. 22.

4 Ibid., p. 23.

5 Ibid.

6 Marquand, p. 61.

7 Morand, Allure , p. 30.

8 Ibid., p. 24.

9 Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen , p. 325.

10 Ibid., pp. 326, 455.

11 Ibid., p. 313.

12 Ibid.

13 Morand, Allure , p. 19.

14 Ibid., p. 20.

15 Ibid., p. 19.

CHAPTER 4: Things That I Should Be and Which I Am Not

1 Paul Morand, The Allure of Chanel , p. 27.

2 Ibid., p. 28.

3 Charles Roux, Chanel , p. 79.

4 Morand, Allure , p. 29.

5 Charles Roux, p. 84.

6 Morand, Allure , p. 31.

7 Pierre Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel , p. 60.

8 Judith Thurman, Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette , p. 111. This superlative biography of Colette was a fascinating comparison in my gradual understanding of Gabrielle.

9 Hickman, p. 12.

10 Liane de Pougy, My Blue Notebooks , p. 51.

11 Galante, p. 54.

CHAPTER 5: A Rich Man’s Game

1 Paul Morand, Venices , p. 42.

2 Judith Thurman, Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette , p. 113.

3 Paul Morand, The Allure of Chanel , p. 52.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid., p. 146.

6 Ibid., p 31.

7 Shari Benstock, Women of the Left Bank , p. 46.

8 Ibid., pp. 54, 228.

9 Thurman, p. 165.

10 Valerie Steele, Paris Fashion , p. 164

11 Pierre Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel , p. 22.

12 Morand, Allure , p. 56.

13 Steele, Paris Fashion , p. 172.

14 Ibid., p. 170.

15 Ibid., p. 173, and Amy de la Haye, Chanel: The Couturière at Work , p. 9.

16 Galante, p. 63.

17 Ibid.

18 Morand, Allure , p. 39.

CHAPTER 6: Captive Mistress

1 Paul Morand, The Allure of Chanel , p. 32.

2 Ibid., p. 23, and Marcel Haedrich, Coco Chanel , p. 79.

3 Katie Hickman, Courtesans , p. 6. Hickman was most instructive in my understanding of the courtesan’s attitudes and milieu.

4 Morand, Allure , p. 33.

5 Charles Roux, Chanel , p. 115, and Axel Madsen, Chanel: A Woman of Her Own , p. 55.

6 Isabelle Fiemeyer, Coco Chanel: Un parfum de mystère , pp. 37, 53.

7 Lilou Marquand, Chanel m’a dit , p. 65.

8 Morand, Allure , p. 33.

9 Marquand, p. 56.

10 Morand, Allure , p. 33.

11 Marquand interview with author, January 2010.

12 Fiemeyer, p. 50.

13 Lourdes Font, Fashion Theory , p. 305.

14 Morand, Lewis et Irène , p. 23.

15 Ibid., p. 87.

16 Ibid., p. 108.

17 Morand, Allure , pp. 34, 53.

18 Morand, Lewis et Irène , p. 120.

19 Morand, Allure , p. 34.

20 Ibid., pp. 33, 39.

21 Ibid., p. 34.

22 Morand, Lewis et Irène , p. 307.

23 Morand, Allure , p. 34.

24 Morand, Lewis et Irène , p. 306.

25 Morand, Allure , p. 32.

26 Henry Gidel, Coco Chanel , p. 53.

27 Ronald Courtenay Bodley, Indiscretions of a Young Man , p. 122.

28 Morand, Lewis et Irène , p. 307.

29 Morand, Allure , p. 36.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., p. 34.

CHAPTER 7: Arthur Capel

1 Paul Morand, The Allure of Chanel , p. 20.

2 Ibid., p. 34.

3 Arthur’s and his father Arthur Joseph’s birth certificates as well as the Census records revealed Arthur’s antecedents and their subsequent betterment.

4 Arthur Edward Capel was born at Bedford House, Marine Parade, Brighton.

5 Arthur Joseph Capel (from the London post office directory, between 1875 and 1884, one sees Arthur’s father’s rise to prominence as an entrepreneur). In 1874, he was a businessman and agent for travelers to Paris, and by 1880 he had become a major agent for train and shipping companies in Ireland, England, France and Spain. In 1884, he was a founder of a compressed air company licensed to lay pipes through the streets (Bulletin of Warwickshire Industrial Archeology Society, issue 5, summer 1995). This must have been a very lucrative venture.

6 Joseph’s diverse business interests now required distant travel. In December 1884, he was at a coming-out ball for debutantes at Delmonico’s, the most distinguished public dining rooms in New York ( The New York Times ). By 1885, it appears he no longer needed to work.

7 Philip Sydney, Modern Rome in Modern England , pp. 114–15.

8 I am indebted to Father Tom McCoog, archivist at the British Province of the Society of Jesus, Mount Street, London, who pointed out the unlikelihood of Arthur’s attendance at Downside and suggested Stonyhurst as his school, and also passed me on to Bernardo Caparrini, who has worked on the history of Beaumont College. Bernardo recommended me to David Knight, archivist at Stonyhurst College, who was assiduous on my behalf in discovering Stonyhurst’s record of Arthur (including a photo of him with fellow Gentlemen Philosophers). In the Stonyhurst log, in Arthur’s own hand, he details his place of birth and schooling. The information at Stonyhurst was invaluable in my search for this most elusive man.

9 From Bernardo Caparrini, I had these crucial references for Arthur’s movements: The Beaumont Lists for Fifty Years, 1861–1911; Supplement to The Beaumont Review Old Windsor; The Beaumont Review Office, 1911, p. 17; The Beaumont Lists, 1861–1961; The Beaumont Review , no. 207, October. 1963, p. 470. Bernardo also referred to “a manuscript document at the Mount Street archives (box PE/2) titled “Lists from 1887–1909 (with follow-up notes)”… in which it says (folio 190)… “Capel, Arthur Edward (entered Oct. 14, 1891; left Aug., 1897) b. Brighton 1881, was at a school in Paris. Went to San Sebastian in Spain. Was a Philosopher at Stonyhurst, where he carried off the Keating Prize…” (The “Keating Prize” was for the best essay on Christian Sociology.)

10 H. J. A. Sire, Gentlemen Philosophers , p. 5. Sire, suggested by Bernardo Caparrini, details life at Stonyhurst College for the Gentlemen Philosophers.

11 The New York Times , June 12, 1902.

12 Arthur Capel noted at a polo match at Deauville. Le Gaulois , August 16, 1909.