Coco Chanel at Home: 10 Photos of the Iconic Couturier in Her Glamorous Sanctuaries

Coco Chanel, a woman whose name became synonymous with haute couture, fine perfume, and luxury branding, was born in 1883, in a charity hospital. After the death of her mother, when Chanel was still a preteen, she and two of her sisters were abandoned by their father at a convent orphanage in rural Aubazine, France. She rose from these humble beginnings to become Paris’s most celebrated couturier, drawing upon her impoverished origins to develop her groundbreaking style. The young Chanel learned to sew in the convent and went on to create black-and-white garments that reflected the palette of the nuns’ habits, and it’s said that her interlocking Cs logo are a visual reference to the overlapping circles of the convent windows. Chanel’s spare, chic style and use of jersey fabrics were revolutionary, freeing women from the corsets and long skirts of the past—but her interior decor was anything but monastic. In her Paris apartments, villas on the Riviera, and her suite at the Ritz Hotel, she relied on expensive coromandel screens, ornate statues, and lots of mirrors—the better to see the creations she designed right on the models. At home, surrounded by elegant objects collected over the years, she worked right up until her death at 87. “As a child I had only two dresses,” Chanel is quoted as saying in Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History. “Perhaps this is why I created so many later on, all conceived by me.” The following 10 photos offer a look at the life of luxury all those dresses afforded the legendary style-setter. A gem of a house Chanel is shown here in 1929 in front of the Paris home she rented through the late 1930s, an 18th-century building at 29 Rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré. In November, 1932, the designer fêted the launch of her one and only jewelry collection with a party in this home. Guests including Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau attended to admire the jewelry, which was inspired by the floor mosaics at the Aubazine Abbey—the orphanage where Chanel grew up. A model businesswoman During the same 1929 shoot, Chanel posed with Russian model and Chanel muse Lady Abdy in the garden of the former’s home. It’s no wonder why the designer allowed a photoshoot on the property, and would continue to do so throughout the years; the grounds were peaceful and well-kept, and the interiors an elaborate jewel box. A 1931 The New Yorker article paints a vivid picture: “Her house was constructed in 1719 for the Duchesse de Rohan-Montbazon, and its furnishings, since Chanel has a name for loving the simple, must serve to supply her with a glorious change. For here Chanel’s taste has run to coromandel screens and chinoiseries, mirrors, masses of fine period furniture and precious items.” Discovering America In 1931, Chanel visited the United States at the invitation of Sam Goldwyn of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who hired her to create costumes for a few of the film studio’s pictures. Although her ultimate destination was Hollywood, Chanel spent a month in New York. The designer is shown here at her home away from home, the Hotel Pierre. Riviera life The creator of the famed luxury handbag had a different favorite status symbol: vacation homes. “Among other properties, she also has a small, moated, old Norman country place at Mesnil-Guillaume, near Lisieux, where she goes boar-hunting and where, before she tried it, she thought she wanted to run a model farm,” the 1931 New Yorker article notes. “For weekends she has just acquired Madame Colette’s little house at Montfort-l’Amaury; for longer summer holidays, there is a great modern place she built, and furnished in beige, at Roquebrune, on the Riviera.” Chanel designed that “modern place” in 1928 with architect Robert Streitz. She dubbed it La Pausa, after a 15th-century chapel built on one of the property’s most hallowed spots; local legend maintains that the Virgin Mary paused while traveling to Marseilles after the crucifixion of Jesus at one point on the grounds. The designer sold the property in 1953, but the House of Chanel purchased it in 2015 to host company events. Here, Chanel poses on the grounds of La Pausa with her dog Gigot and her friend, socialite and philanthropist Lady Mary Dunn. London calling The designer spent a great deal of time in London. This 1938 portrait of Chanel by photographer Cecil Beaton was taken in one of the city’s hotels. She was romantically involved with the Duke of Westminster between 1924 and the early 1930s, and often stayed with him at Bourdon House, his Queen Anne mansion in Mayfair. She opened a Chanel boutique in London in 1927. Local legend in London holds that the interlocking Cs on lampposts in certain neighborhoods are the Duke’s homage to his love, but the truth is that the initials stand for City Council. Home for the day In 1918, Chanel bought an 18th-century building at 31 Rue Cambon, steps away from her first Parisian shop on the same street, which she opened in 1910. She used the ground floor of the property to display her designs, the one above it as a reception area, and the one above that as her private apartments. The designer filled her residence there with leather-bound books, antiques, Chinese screens, and her signature favorite flower, camellias. Chanel, a Leo, smiles at a lion figurine while basking in the glory of the opulent abode in this 1957 photo. As much as she loved it, she did not spend the night there, preferring instead to sleep in her suite at the Ritz Hotel across the street. Bookworm Chanel entertained guests from Salvador Dalí to Elizabeth Taylor at 31 Rue Cambon, but it also functioned as a workplace for the designer; this 1960 photo shows Chanel holding a fitting with models in the apartment. The House of Chanel has preserved the pad as it was at her death in 1971, complete with the couturier’s floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. In Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History, biographer Rhonda K. Garelick notes that Chanel hired a young writer, Maurice Sachs, “to fill her home with books she should read, paying him a generous monthly retainer to select just the right leather-bound classics.” Today, though the apartment is only open for VIP guests, photo shoots, and press events, the floor above it remains an atelier. Suite Coco Chanel Here, Chanel has retired to her suite at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, where she spent every night before returning to 31 Rue Cambon. The designer rented Suite 302 of the Ritz in 1937 and continued her routine of spending nights at the hotel until her death in 1971—even during the German occupation of Paris, when Nazi officers lived on several floors. According to the website of the Ritz, which now rents out a dedicated Suite Coco Chanel, “15 place Vendôme became her refuge, a haven of tranquillity after long days at work, the hotel staff like a second family. She also enjoyed socializing here, or dining at Espadon with close friends such as Misia Sert, Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau.” Timeless taste Famed photographer Cecil Beaton began taking portraits of his friend Chanel as early as 1929. This 1965 shot shows the designer in her apartment. In Mademoiselle, Garelick argues that Chanel refined her interior aesthetic in 1910, in a small flat she shared with her lover, polo player Arthur “Boy” Capel. The dwelling showcased the couple’s “love of deep golden tones, ornate lacquered furniture, mirrors in gilt frames, floral designs, English silver, Oriental vases, white satin bedding, and sofas piled with soft puffy cushions.” Garelick writes, “For the rest of her life, in every home she occupied, Coco would recreate for herself the look of this early apartment—the only place it seems she felt truly settled and at ease.” A step above This 1969 portrait shows Chanel on the staircase at the Rue Cambon, which was lined with mirrors so that the designer could scrutinize models wearing her creations (and clients’ reactions to them) from every angle. After self-imposed exile and temporary retirement in Switzerland following World War II (Chanel’s wartime romance with a German spy and rumors of her collaboration with the Nazis made her unpopular at home in France), the designer returned to Paris. Spending days at Rue Cambon and nights at the Ritz, she launched a comeback collection in 1954. Chanel worked right up until her death in 1971, when she suffered a heart attack in her suite at the Ritz, after a lifetime of controversy, innovation, and unparalleled style.