Personal life and entry into fashion

While she failed to get steady work as a singer, it was at Moulins that she met rich, young French
textile heir Étienne Balsan, to whom she soon became an acknowledged mistress, keeping her
day job in a tailoring shop. Balsan lavished on her the beauties of "the rich life": diamonds,
dresses and pearls. (Note that in France, mistresses have been acknowledged for centuries
among the wealthy, though the members of the occupation, such as Chanel, were disparaged in
private as upper-class prostitutes.) While living with Balsan, Chanel began designing hats as a
hobby, which soon became a deeper interest of hers. "After opening her eyes," as she would say,
Coco left Balsan and took over his apartment in Paris.

In 1909 Chanel met and began an affair with one of Balsan's friends, Captain Arthur Edward 'Boy'
Capel.[5]

Capel financed Chanel's first shops and his own clothing style, notably his jersey blazers, inspired
her creation of the Chanel look. The couple spent time together at fashionable resorts such
as Deauville, but he was never faithful to Chanel.[6]

The affair lasted nine years, but even after Capel married an aristocratic English beauty in 1918,
he did not completely break off with Chanel. His death in an auto accident, in late 1919, was the
single most devastating event in Chanel's life.[7]

According to local report a roadside memorial at the site of the accident was placed there by
Chanel, who visited it in after years to place flowers there.[8]

Chanel became a licensed modiste in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris
named Chanel Modes.[9] Chanel's modiste career boomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorizat
modelled her hats in the F Noziere's play Bel Ami in 1912 (Subsequently, Dorizat modelled her
hats again in Les Modes).[9] In 1913, she established a boutique in Deauville, where she
introduced luxe casual clothes that were suitable for leisure and sport.[9] Chanel launched her
career as fashion designer when she opened her next boutique, titled Chanel-Biarritz, in 1915,
[9]
catering for the wealthy Spanish clientele who holidayed in Biarritz and were less affected by
the war.[10] Fashionable like Deauville, Chanel created loose casual clothes made out of jersey, a
material typically used for men's underwear.[9] By 1919, Chanel was registered as a couturiere
and established her maison de couture at 31 rue Cambon.[9]

Later in life, she concocted an elaborate false history for her humble beginnings. Chanel would
steadfastly claim that when her mother died, her father sailed for America to get rich and she was
sent to live with two cold-hearted spinster aunts. She even claimed to have been born in 1893 as
opposed to 1883, and that her mother had died when Coco was two instead of twelve.
In 1920, she was introduced by ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev to world-famous composer Igor
Stravinsky (who composed 'The Rite of Spring'), to whom she extended an offer for him and his
family to reside with her. During this temporary sojourn it was rumoured that they had an affair.

Coco dated some of the most influential men of her time, but she never married. The reason may
be found in her answer, when asked why she did not marry the Duke of Westminster: "There
have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel."[11]