Her style was elegant but also always modest. She favored black and white as a color scheme, nubby, rough fabrics, and the idea of clothing as a “uniform.” Her chain link belts are very similar to the rosary belts the nuns wore. “In fact, she imposed a sort of covert “convent chic” style upon the world. “If you look closely, you can see clues to her convent upbringing everywhere,” Little says. She is “the one person who knew exactly what Coco had to hide… who probably knew Coco better than Coco knew herself.” Through this sister’s eyes, Little brings to vivid life the influence of Coco’s upbringing on her famous aesthetic and style. Coco, more pragmatic than Ninette, is willing to go beyond the boundaries of polite society and ultimately tries both.”įor The Chanel Sisters, Little choose Ninette as the primary storyteller- the younger sister who was there through their early challenges, and who, as a business partner, played a previously unsung role in the founding of the Chanel Empire. Women like Coco who hoped to have financial success had just two main ways to go about it: a career on the stage and/or becoming the mistress of a wealthy man. Unfortunately, back then, women didn’t have the array of possibilities they have today. She learned from watching her mother’s demise that relying on someone else could literally kill you.
Like the others, she longs for the adoration she never received from her father, but she’s also driven by an almost primal need for financial independence. In those days, coming up in the world meant marrying well, and she naively dreams of the kind of respectable marriage that means society will have to acknowledge her (in a way her father never did).
Ninette, the youngest, wants stability and acceptance. She has no grand dreams to break out of poverty like the other two and is more willing to accept her lowly place in the world. “Julia-Berthe, the oldest sister,” explains Little, “seeks out physical love. Far from being a solitary figure, Coco Chanel had two sisters.
Three daughters were taken to an orphanage in the convent of Aubazine, where they remained until adulthood. When Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was a child, the death of her mother prompted her father to abandon his children. Judithe Little, author of The Chanel Sisters (Graydon House, 2020), had always imagined Coco as “a solitary figure wreathed in strands of pearls,” but as she researched the fashion icon’s life, she quickly found there was much to learn- starting with the fact that Coco, the embodiment Parisian chic, was in fact born in a pauper’s hospital in the French provinces, the illegitimate daughter of a lovesick laundress and a traveling hawker of women’s underthings. Throughout her life Coco Chanel lied about her upbringing. Uncovering Coco Chanel’s Hidden History: The Chanel Sisters by Judithe Little
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