← Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood
Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood
203. Coco Chanel - The Fascist Fashionista - From the Vault
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Hey, it's Nora Jones. And my podcast Playing along is back with more of my favorite musicians. Check out my newest episode with Finneas. So I went home and I asked Billie if she wanted to sing it. She immediately made it her own thing. You really know how to make me cry when you give me those ocean eyes and I'm scared. So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why do some women yearn for Shakira's black hair to make a comeback? And whatever happened to the power couple of my dreams, Mariah Carey and Luis Miguel? I'm Maria Garcia. You may remember me from my podcast Anything for selena or my TiVo. And now I'm back to unpack more stories from the present and the past. Listen to Muy Excited with Maria Garcia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thirty years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City. Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Who will you trust? The people five miles overseas. This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough. But we're not stopping, are we? Listen to Revisionist the Staten island problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tyler redick here from 2311 racing the rush of racing. Nothing beats it, but Chumba Casino comes close. Chumba's got fast spins, fun games, daily bonuses, and all the action you can handle. Now that's a ride. Ready to hit the throttle? Get in the driver's seat and head to chumbacasino.com let's Chumba. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group void where prohibited by law 21 terms and conditions apply. Hello delicious friends, and welcome to who did what now, the history podcast. That is not your history class. With me, your host, Katy Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books, Redux. Now, speaking of books, I have never been so justified in my love of physical media as I have as of late. You've got video games that people have purchased, like, removed from the system. You have cloud storage that you were told was going to be free is now being taken. And AI companies are destroying rare and antique and vintage books to feed their machines to produce AI slop. And as as anyone who has watched my socials know, like you'll see in my bedroom, I have my Color coded bookcase, which is just one of the cases I have. Yeah, there's more, there's more. And I have a, I have a book trolley which should surprise absolutely no one. Look at that downstairs. Because I'm always. There's just piles of books in my house as well, just for when I'm doing research. And I was, I was looking up a case because I was gonna do like a historical crime thing and I was looking at it online and so I was looking up these digital copies and because I had thought about it before and previously, like five, six years ago, I still had my handwritten notes of like important details. Because sometimes if something goes missing and you haven't saved it, you kind of have to like type in all the information to try and find it. And the interesting thing was is that the nationality of the individuals who were, you know, blamed for this crime ever changed from then to now. And I think it was specifically done in a detrimental aspect. And so for me, I was like, oh, thank Christ. I had my original notes because this has changed. And it just shows you how easy it is to sort of alter and edit and perhaps even manipulate the data. And so I was like, oh goodness, thank God I have my physical copies of books, which is why I like the old books now. It's, it's a redux this week for everybody because I, I say this week there, there will be more. You'll be getting extra stuff this month specifically, because I'm covering so many things and I just haven't been able to get everything done in time. It's just been with the bank holiday and everything that's been happening over here, I just haven't had time to get everything together because this month, the month of August, because everyone is always asking me questions about like World War II and the Holocaust and stuff like that. I was like, well, you know what? I will spend this month answering them because that's. It seems to be a thing that I've just started to do is I will take this one month and I will answer these damn questions. And there was over four and a half thousand questions. Luckily, some of those questions were the same one, just phrased differently. And there were a few just like statements and dog whistles and things like that. But it gave me a really good, like, place in which to work from. So, like the first, I think week and a half are basically covering sort of the Holocaust aspect of it. And then we're branching into like different parts of World War II. And so it's all going to be covered within that. So because of that, I thought, well, you know what? Let me share this one of my favorite episodes to write, actually, because I've been obsessed with sharing this because we have this idea and this image of. Of Coco Chanel, of this sort of glamorous. She invented, you know, the little black dress. She was a perfumier. She was just like. Like, it's interesting because, like, she's cool. I'm up until a point. And then. And then she's very not cool. Because I hate to break it to you, everybody, but Coco Chanel was a Nazi. And up until that point, you're like, you're doing okay in life and then Nazi, which is, for me, I feel, a turning point and something I don't really appreciate. But I thought, you know what? Seeing as many of you might not have heard this one before, I'm gonna reshare Chanel the collaborator, or as I like to call her, the fascist fashionista, which I thought was really good alliteration. But without further ado, I will let you listen to this, because I have been chatting for a while now. I'm sorry, but I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, katie, please quit your jibber jabber and fact me. In fact you. I will, but first we've got to get our source on. Oh, and also, the next episode is actually about a serial killer in Nazi Germany. So. And it's coming soon. Like, by the time you have this, you will almost have the next one. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. But, yes, let's get our source on. Our sources are. Chanel and Her Friends, Fashion and Fame by Edmond Charles Rue. Coco Chanel An Intimate Life by Lisa Chaney. Sleeping with the Enemy. Coco Chanel, Nazi Agent by Hal Vaughn. Mademoiselle Chanel by C.W. gortner. Coco Chanel the Legend and the Life by Justine Picardy. Mademoiselle Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhonda K. Garelic. Coco Chanel From Fashion Icon to Nazi Agent by Geoffrey Jones and Emily Grand Jean. And of course, we have our favorites, biography.com and history.com. are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then let's begin. As some of you know, I have a special, special place in my heart for harlots, whores, hussies, and strumpets. And the thing is about the women who have these labels, generally, the reason they make the choices they make, it's because they have to. Because there are no other options, because they do what is necessary. And quite a lot of the Time, like myself, you'll find yourself rooting for these badass women. As you fucking should. And you're probably gonna feel that way about Coco Chanel up until the midpoint of this tale, at which point you're going to get very angry. I mean, if you have a soul. But you, you are not going to be on her side. You will be, you'll be backing her up until a certain point and then the shit's gonna hit the fan and choices are made, and not necessarily the best ones, you know, for humanity, but we're gonna get there. But I guess we should start from the beginning. And so we shall. But one more thing. Before we do, I would like to formally apologize to any French or French speaking people who have to hear me pronounce words with this accent. Because I'm probably gonna fuck up a bunch of them. Like absolutely. But let's just get into it. Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born on 19th August 1883. We have a birthday, everybody, we have a location, we have a date. Not just a year, an actual date. I mean it is the 1880s, so you know, whatever. But still, look at this progress. Come on. Okay, so Chanel is born to Albert Chanel and Eugenie Jean Devol. So she's basically known as Jeanne for most of her life. She's never really known as Eugenie or anything else. So she is born in a poor house in Saumur. It's basically this poor house run by nuns. None nuns, nuns. It's always those bloody nuns. So she is born in this poor house to Albert and Jean. Albert is a traveling salesman, so he does door to door sales effectively he is selling work clothes and underwear, like undergarments. That is has thing. And so he would travel around, he's very nomadic. Who, even though he is, you know, going around the place, still manages to get Jean pregnant quite a lot. See Gabrielle here she is the second child born to the couple this year. Like you know, two in one year. That's Irish twins. You might be in France, but those are Irish twins. So her sister Julie is her older sister. And a year later Albert and Jean get married. So yeah, she's born out of wedlock. So in this day and age, Gabrielle Donneur Chanel was officially a bastard baby born in a poor house. And after she is born, her mother Jean is so ill that she cannot go and like sign the birth register. And Albert, he's off gallivantin selling undergarments of no particular description. I could not find out exactly what he sold. So I can only assume it's hosiery and corsets or maybe whatever old fashioned bloomers. Maybe bloomers. It could be bloomers. But he's not around. And so her name, her surname actually gets registered incorrect. So instead of being Chanel, it's Shaznelle. And it's because of this that we actually found out about her original upbringing. So when Chanel makes it big, she. Bullshit. So she says she's born 10 years later than she is. Then she basically says that she had a glamorous and wonderful upbringing. So yeah, in 1884, Jean and Albert, they get married. Effectively her family banded together. United was the term used most often they got together to pay for Albert. Now I don't know if this meant there was some kind of dowry involved or, or whether they just offered general financial support, but I suppose they just didn't want Jean to be an unmarried mother of two children. And so, yes, here we go. They get married, the couple then go on to have six children, well, four more children. So you have Juliet, Gabrielle, Alphonse, Antoinette, Lucien and Augustine. And Augustin. Augustin, eh, One of those. He only lives till six or seven months. He doesn't make it past infancy. So this family all together live in this one room lodging. So they're lodging in one room, they're renting, right? They don't even own a one roomed building. They are renting one room in a building and they're all crammed together in this little town, Brives La Gueharte, which I've probably mispronounced, sorry, French people. I'm trying my best. And they are not doing well financially. Clearly they are, well, how would I put this? Dirt poor, broken. Right? So yes, things are not going well and they're about to get fucking worse. Because when she turns 11 years old, her mother Jean, she dies and her dad just cannot support the full family on his own. Or he just can't handle it. Not surprised by any stretch of the imagination, Albert, I'm not surprised. So he sends his boys away to become farmhands. So they're farm laborers. He's like, that's it, you've got jobs. So they must be like much, much younger because you've got like Gabrielle, she's 11, she's the second oldest. And depending on the time of year, you know, Julie could also be 11. Then the rest of the kids, they're gonna be just decreasing from there. So these are young children and they're being sent away to be farmhands. Like that is not even remotely an easy task. But off they go. The girls, however, they were sent away to the incredibly strict convent at Obozin, which was effectively, it was an orphanage rail run by some of the scariest people in the world. You guessed it, the fucking nuns are at it again. So the congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary and the whole point of this orphanage is to take care of abandoned and orphaned Catholic girls, or at least people they can then turn Catholic. I mean, it's France, basically everyone's Catholic and surprise, surprise, it's fucking horrific there. It is severe and stark and it is absolutely awful. But fortunately, this was where Chanel learned to sew. Unfortunately, at the age of 18, like many, many children in the system, Chanel ages out and she gets, oh, she has to leave. So Julie would have already been sent out probably earlier in the year, but I'm not actually sure where Julie went to. Anywho, Chanel moves to a boarding house for Catholic girls in Moulins. So there you have it. Abandoned by her father, sent off to an orphanage, aged out of the orphanage and having to live in a Catholic boarding house. Well, she gets a job as a seamstress, so that is her day job. But Chanel, she wants more, more from this. So she moonlights at a cabaret. Something that Chanel really did have going for her was her looks. So she was young and she was attractive and she manages to get a wee gig in La Rotonde, which is a pavilion in Moulin. So she's singing at this cafe concert in this wee cabaret and she would sing in between, like the main acts. So she was like a wee filler. You know, nowadays you'd have like a comic or something. They probably did have a comic actually, and other such fun things. But she would come out and sing in between the main acts, so. So she wasn't paid per se by the cabaret, she would get paid in tips. So whenever she would perform in between the big acts, like a wee dish would be going round like a collection plate and people would put money in for her. So this particular cabaret was oft frequented by cavalry officers. So these young military men would go in and watch her perform and listen to her sing and perhaps even dare have a conversation with her between performances. So yeah, she went from one collection plate to another one way or another, really. Now at McDonald's, everyone can get more of what they want when they want it. With McVowlie, you can choose your wake up call, you can choose your study meal or even your drive thru dinner jump from craving to saving with McDonald's under $3 menu including a McChicken for only $2 limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Well, it's that time again. Backpacks, first day of school outfits and the low key anxiety of Am I even doing this right? Good Mom's Bad Choices is diving into the back to school season the way only we know how. Unfiltered, funny and full of the moments other shows won't touch. From surviving morning drop offs to the guilt of missing the first bake sale. Iri told me that she next season she wants to join a club team that's by your house. So I was like, so you want me to pick you up from I'll take her by my house, but then I have to take her there and then I have to drive back and then some days I'm here and I have to go pick you up at school and then bring you the I was just like hell no. This is a space where moms trade their highlight reel for the real real. Whether you're a new mom, a veteran mom, or just trying to make it to pick up on time, this season of Good Moms Bad Choices is for you. Listen to Good Moms Bad Choices from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert. And I'm Perry Wilson, I'm a medical doctor. And this is our new podcast, Wellness actually, because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays, and some of it is awesome and some of it is, well, actually. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies, parse data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore. Each episode we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and wellness topic like what's the deal with Peptides? What's the deal with GLP1s? What's the deal with creatine? What's the deal with cupping? What's the deal with sleep? So join us for a weekly dose of sanity might actually be just what the doctor or the economist ordered. Listen to Wellness actually, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drew McIntyre here from WWE. Wielding the Claymore can be a life of chaos. When I'm not dominating in the ring. Chumba Casino is how this warrior takes a Wee break. With hundreds of online social games and new weekly releases, there's always something fresh to try in those daily boosts. Next level. Even my free time feels like Valhalla. So when life feels like a battle, kick up your feet, have some fun, and let's Chumba. No purchase necessary vgw group void where prohibited by law. CTS and C's 21+ sponsored by Chumba Casino So it is here where Chanel gets her nickname. She tries to say it's because she sang a song, Coco Coco. But no, no. It actually comes from the word cocot, which means kept women. Another phrase for that could also be lady of the night. Basically, she survived by the funding of men. Basically. The idea is that Coco Chanel was a sugar baby and, frankly, cannot really blame her at this point. You know what? It's probably, I think, still the Victorian era. You do you, babe. You know what I mean? And she was very, very popular, by all accounts, with the military men that visited La Rodond. Very popular indeed. All I'm saying, just putting it out there, I think that Mademoiselle Chanel clearly has a tape. So when she's 23, she moves to Vichy for the summer season. Vichy, if you don't know, is not just a skincare brand. I think it does makeup too. I'm fairly certain I have Vichy foundation, but even their lightest shade that they had available doesn't match my skin tone because I'm so incredibly pale. Like, I'm naturally a pale shade of blue. It takes me, like, a week of sunbathing to become white. So Vichy is this spa resort, and it had everything. It had concert halls and cafes and theaters and cabarets and everything that went with it. And Chanel, she has stars in her eyes. She is ready for this. And as we said before, Chanel is young and pretty, but her voice was. I'm gonna go with mediocre. Like, it's. It's less than great. You know, good, but not quite there. Not the standard of the Vichy Spa Resort. And so she gets audition after audition because, you know, she's gorgeous, she's attractive, she. She's young, but she just doesn't have, you know, the talent to be there, you know? So after, you know, failing audition after audition, she gets a job as a water girl. So the Vichy water, it has, like, minerals in it, and it's supposed to be, like, regenerative and amazing. It has curative mineral properties. Mmm. But anyway, she gets a job as a water girl at the Grand Crill. And when The Vichy summer season is over. She returns back to Moulins and La Rotonde. And it's at this point it becomes crystal clear to her that she is not, in fact, destined for the stage. So she needs to figure out a new game plan. She needs a man. Like, she's astute enough to know that in this world, she needs that. Unless we don't judge at this point, it's 1906, and she's a woman who grew up in abject poverty. This woman is in the turn of the century, broke as shit, fucked around from pillar to post, abandoned. And she needs to survive. So she goes, fuck this for a game of soldiers. She needs a man. A rich man, preferably. Because here's the thing. If you have ever been dirt poor in your life, if you have ever lived in any moment of poverty, that will stick with you and you will not want to go back there again. Like that is right in the back of your brain. There is a panic button there. So, you know, yes, at this point, we're still. We're still on Chanel's side. Good for her. You do what you need to do, honey. So she meets this ex cavalry officer and what do you know, Textile heir Etienne Balsin. And she becomes his mistress. Again, good for her. You get with that rich man and you take his money. So Chanel gets with Barcin and they move into his Chateau Royalieu. I have pronounced it incorrectly. Desolaiz, mon francais, tres maverick. And so she moves a Manhattan, thus usurping his courtesan, Emilienne d'. Lincien. She gets kicked to the curb, as is the way, you know, it's just how thing goes. But she manages to find something else for herself. So Coco Chanel is the mistress, the courtesan to textile air, Etienne Baron. And they live at his chateau for three years. And they live it up. Let me tell you, that is a champagne lifestyle. There is diamonds and pearls and fashion. It is self indulgent. There's decadence, there is parties, there is satisfaction. Like, remember how Anthony and Cleopatra had this big indulgent soiree lifestyle? These two do. They are living it up. Balsam is not faithful. Are we surprised? Absolutely fucking not. This is a man and also a man from the past. Rich man from the past. There's no stopping them, really. So after those three years, she begins an affair with his buddy. Now, again, this is 1908, she's a woman. And you know, she allegedly replaced a courtesan, meaning that she could very well easily be replaced. That's just how things go. I mean, clearly there was no bro code going on here. But she starts seeing this other fella. I mean, he's not faithful. Why should she be? This gal has no time for your double standards, as she should. So she starts this affair with Captain Arthur Edward Capel, who is an English aristocrat. And so these two men start vying for her affections, right? And I don't know what it is about Chanel. Was she charming? Did she have an enchanting vagina? Whom's to say? All I know is these two guys start a bidding war. Like, she is even quoted as saying, time for my terrible French impression. Here we go. Two gentlemen were out bidding for my odd little body. I mean, that's a weird way to put it, but yeah. So there is a bidding war happening for Chanel's affections. And Chanel, during this time, she has become like a qualified milliner. So she makes hats, and she starts making hats and designing hats. And she opens up this little boutique on the Rue Cambon in Paris called Chanel Maud. And it only sells hats, just a hat shop. About two years later, like this famous actress, Gabrielle Dossier, she wears her hats to this play in all of her performances. And next thing you know, sales are booming, skyrocketing. Everybody wants a Chanel hat. She becomes, you know, the designer of the moment. So everything is coming up Milhouse. And the following year, she opens up another boutique, and this is financed by Captain Arthur Capel, and it's in Deauville. And, you know, she's expanding. She's moving out there. And she starts designing these casual clothes, leisure wear and sport. Well, here's the thing. Her casual, and maybe your casual are my casual are very different types of casual. Like, this is rich people casual. Not, you know, going to the shops in my loungewear casual. No, this is. This is I shall wear my casual tea dress casual. You know what I mean? Says me, who's currently recording in a Powerpuff Girl snuggie. So in this boutique, she is selling hats, obviously, but she's also got jumpers or it'll be sweaters to my American followers, sweaters. And she does this thing called the sailor blouse, which is known as La Marinier. Business is going well, but then there's a problem. World War I breaks out, 1914, and there is a lack of fabric. But Chanel, being the ingenuity little bitch that she is, she decides to use Tricot and jersey. So these fabrics were generally used for men's underwear. They're affordable, basically cheap. And she can get access to them because they're not used for military uniforms or anything necessary like that. So this really plays into her, and she does this really fucking smart move where she hires her auntie and her sister. You're thinking, that's good. She's supporting family. So her paternal aunt is basically very similar in age to, like, her and her sisters. So Adrienne, her auntie, and her sister Antoinette, she gets them to wear her designs and to walk around the town of Deauville. It's in Deauville. Chanel in De Ville. So they would saunter through the town of Deauville wearing the lovely garments designed by Chanel, and basically show them off to everybody living there because, I mean, it's the best form of advertisement at the time because. Ooh, where did you get that lovely dress? Oh, from Chanel. But a lot of the people that were coming into Deville, they were fleeing Paris. So the trendy Parisians, they wanted nice clothes, and where were they gonna go? Well, voila. And Chanel, her business just keeps growing. So she opens up this new business in Biarritz on the Cote Basque. And it's not really a storefront, per se. Well, it's not a storefront at all because they don't put it in a storefront. They put it in a fucking villa opposite the casino, which, I mean, you can't deny that's a really good move. I mean, that's just smart. So the place is full of these mainly rich Spaniards. And you've had people that are fleeing one war or the other, and they just need. Or they want. Because they're rich people, they want nice things, right? They do. They live in luxury. They just can't help themselves, right? It's just the way they are. So the wealthy, they still want to be stylish, but this is wartime, so clothes also have to be practical. So, like, the jersey fabric and all that stuff, it just fucking makes sense because a lot of the trendy Parisians, they're working in the hospital because the men are away at war and the women are doing their part. That's just, you know, how it was. And this Biarritz locale, it is so absolutely profitable. It is raking in the cash. Like, she was able to pay back Carpel's original investment, right? I mean, she doesn't want to be beholden to no man. I can appreciate that. I can understand that. So she pays him back his original investment, but she still, you know, stays his lover. Like, she was hoping that they would get married, but he was not about to marry some courtesan. Like, it wasn't gonna happen. It just wasn't. And at some point around about the Biarritz thing going great, she meets Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich of Russia. They too begin a love affair. And you can understand this because, well, she knows this dude ain't gonna marry her. She's looking for her next, you know, security. And the thing about Carpel, or Carpel as I keep calling him, is that they are still stooping. You know, even when he marries lady diana wyndham in 1918. Like, they're continuing this affair. I'm not entirely sure if he got married before or after the end of the war, but he got married anyway. Now 1919 comes along, war is over, and Chanel registers as a couturier, and she sets up her maison du couture at Trente de Han, Rue Cambon, Paris. But it's not all fun and games, because that very year when she's set up as a couturia, Arthur Karpel involved in a car accident and he dies. And she is very upset about the whole thing. Like, she even says that her heart, a part of it, died that day. Like, she very much grieved the loss of him. But you know what they say, Nothing gets you over the last one like the next one. So 1920 comes along, and she meets the Russian composer Igor Stravaninski. So the Stravinsky family, they have fled, you know, Soviet Russia. There's been a revolution. They're not happy about it. They are getting the hell out of dodge. Now, Stravinsky, he is the composer for the Ballets Russ. So the Russian Ballet. And so they fled, and she puts the family up in her house for seven months, I think in total, which, you know, fair play, call a spade a spade. Good on you, Chanel. And it's here where negotiations start happening. She ends up donating 300,000 francs to the Russian Valley. And so it starts performing in France. And things are going well for Chanel. She's got her couture house. She is designing the costumes for the Russian ballet. Oh, Kel, surprise. Wonder how she got that gig. And she is touring with Stravinsky. She's also shagging him, unbeknownst to his wife. So, hmm. Now, like I said, up until this point, you could would. And I was rooting for Mademoiselle Gabrielle, Coco Chanel. And this is the turning point where the angle shifts. I mean, how to Put this in the nicest way possible. Frankly, Coco Chanel is tilting pretty sharply bitchward. And it only gets worse from here. But anyway, 1922, at the Longchamp races, she meets Pierre Wertheimer. One thing leads to another, and the Wertheimer, Wertheimer, Wertheimer. The brothers, they become massive investors in Parfum Chanel. They provide full financing for the production, marketing and distribution of Chanel Number five. So they would get, like, the majority of the profits because they had the majority of the investments. And initially, Coco Chanel, she is absolutely fine with this agreement. She puts her name on it, but she's not involved in, like, the business side of things. So they own this. These Jewish brothers own this. This is going to be important later on. But, yes, initially, Chanel is happy with this business arrangement. Over time, she becomes less happy. I mean, it could be because of, you know, her habitual drug use. So, yeah, she becomes pals with Missy Assert, who is one of the bohemian elite in Paris, and she's the wife of Jose Maria Cert, the Spanish painter. So they just start, like, hanging out and doing drugs. Like, Chanel becomes addicted to morphine. And if the stories are true, Chanel had some of the quote, unquote, best cocaine parties in Paris. I mean, don't be shocked. Back in the day, everything had like heroin or morphine or opium or cocaine, just raisins, everything. And at this point in her life, things are going well for Chanel. You know, she gets introduced to British high society. She meets Winston Churchill, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Westminster, who is. How do I put this? A disgusting anti Semite. So he fucking hates Jews. Absolutely. Can't stand them. Doesn't even like it when they're a wee bit Jewish. Not at all. That was a really bad joke. My. My dad said he's Jewish, so. So they can kick my ass for making that joke later. So, yeah, she is dealing with this Duke of Westminster, and he is lavishing her with jewels, art, decadent shit, as per fucking usual. And he gets her a home in Mayfair. Now, I've mentioned this before. You get a Monopoly board. Mayfair is the purple one. It's. It's where the money is like only rich people love in Mayfair, you know? Oh, yes. Not just an anti Semite, but also hated the gays. And are we really surprised? No, not even a little bit. So while she's swanning about England, not only does she have the Duke of Westminster on her tail, but, you know, Edward, the Prince of Wales, he is also chasing her. That's right. The one who abdicates, huh? Yeah. And apparently they had a something, something going on. But it fizzles out at some point, probably because the Duke of Westminster gives her this fucking patch of land in France where she builds a villa La Posa. Now, I cannot be mad for her for taking, you know, money off of British royals to build her shit. Like, I can't be mad at that. So Chanel has been rubbing elbows and shoulders with the trendy French, the British aristocracy. What's next? Movie stars? Abso fucking lutely. She starts designing in, like 1931. She starts designing for the moving pictures. So she goes to Hollywood in a white train decked out to be luxurious. Think, you know. No, I was gonna say the Polar Express. That's wrong. Orient Express. The Polar Express. Fuck's sake. No. So she goes over there and she dresses these movie stars and does costume for film. She gets Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich to be her private clients, which, I mean, of course she does. That's fine. But she does not like Hollywood. She finds it incredibly distasteful. She doesn't like it. You know, it's not her bag. It's beneath her, effectively. And. And she really doesn't get or doesn't appreciate, I think, the Hollywood glamour because she was very, like, you see her designs, they're very representative of who she is as a designer. And Hollywood was just more, you know. And she was not back to her personal life, though. She is shagging the poet Pierre Reverdet and the designer Paul Irib. Now, her and Paul, they are together up until 1936 when he dies. And, yeah, the thing about Paul Iribe, I don't know how to pronounce his name and I don't care again, because he's a fucking anti Semite and I have absolutely no patience for those kind of arseholes. He's a bigot. I don't give a fuck. He dies. Adios. So not only was Chanel, you know, having these affairs with these dodgy fucking dudes, she was also getting, I don't know, insecure, paranoid and absolutely batshit crazy. I don't say that lightly because there's this designer, Elsa Schiaparelli, who's. I think she's Italian and I will cover her someday because she's just fucking awesome. So she's very avant garde. She's fun and funky and she has these sort of hints of surrealism. You know, she's inspired by Dali and things like that. And the very boyish, the very traditional lines and shapes, the very austere designs of Chanel, they aren't quite cotton anymore. So it's coming into, like, through the 30s, and this woman is just taking over haute couture. And while everyone is singing Schiaparelli's praises and everything else, Chanel ends up collaborating with Jean Cocteau on. On this theater piece. And basically, it gets torn to shreds, much like her designs, because they were just not good. They were very affected. They were dodgy. Nobody liked them. And everyone is still singing these damn praises by. By Schiaparelli. And so Schiaparelli is calling her like, the hat maker. And. And Chanel is referring to her rival as the girl who makes clothes because she doesn't have, you know, professional training. She just kind of made her way in the world. I mean, Schiaparelli was rich, but, you know, still. So then there is the costume party. This all comes to a head. And they're at this party, and Elsa Schiaparelli is dressed as a tree. I can't remember what Chanel was dressed as. I seem to have blocked it from my memory. So Chanel goes over to her and asks her to dance, you know, which seems innocuous enough. That seems nice. Maybe she's making amends. Maybe she's playing up for the elite that are surrounding them. A little bit crazier than that, we bet. Wee bit bad. What she does is she maneuvers Elsa ski up, really, towards an open flame and sets her on fire. She set her on fire. That was a plan. That was a deliberate action. This woman did. That is not what somebody in the right frame of mind does. One does not just set your rival on fire. I mean, what the fuck? In 1936, there was a French general labor strike. So, yeah, all of the laborers, they go on strike. This fucking hurt Chanel because she is very, well, right wing. She doesn't believe in unions. She doesn't believe in strikes. She's not really a fan of fair wages, you know what I mean? So she is very angry that her workers want higher wages, you know. You know, just a standard, standard living. You know, as someone who grew up dirt poor, she should understand that. But for some reason, I guess she's too far away from it now, especially considering she's still telling people that she is, in fact, you know, had such a wonderful, grand life growing up. Then, of course, World War II. So 1939, you know, war is declared, and Chanel just straight up closes her fashion house. It is Just stopped. She goes on to say that it's not a time for fashion. Effectively, 4,000 workers lose their jobs. She just cuts off 4,000 women straight away. It's not as if she could have, I don't know, worked with the French government to have them. So. Shit, I don't know. There were things you do in wartime. So, yeah, she does that. And she gets really angry because on more than one occasion during this time, Chanel states that she believes that Jewish people, you know, are a threat to Europe in general, and they were the cause of the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union, like the Jews. But of course, Madame Chanel, she needs somewhere to stay at this point. Point. And does she stay in her villa? Does she stay in many of her apartments where she could live in England or elsewhere in France? No. She moves into the Hotel Ritz aided by an old friend that she knew pre war, a certain Baron Hans Gunther von Dinklage. He was a German aristocrat. He was a member of the Prussian army, you know, before World War I, but before Germany became Germany. So, like Prussia, Bismarck, the whole shebang, anyway, he was there. And Baron Von Dincklage, he. He had a special relationship with Madame Chanel and he was the one that made sure she managed to get an abode within the Hotel Reds. He made sure she got in there and they have an affair. Oh, what, you're shocked? I'm shocked. Are you shocked? This is shocking news. Fuck off. So we know now that many French military documents have been unsealed. Remember the Wertheimer brothers? Yes, the men who own the Chanel parfum. See, the Nazis were putting into law that Jewish people could not own businesses. You know, that thing was coming into France as well as everywhere else. And Chanel knew this was going to be happening again because of her shagging a Nazi. And so she starts petitioning the Germans to reclaim her sole ownership of the brand of the Chanel perfume. So she was actively trying to get rid of her Jewish business partners in more ways than one. She basically put a target on their backs. So she tried to fuck him over. But the Wertheimer brothers, they weren't idiots. They could see this coming. So Chanel writes to the government administrator in. In charge of Jewish assets, right? And she's like, I own it. Because Parfum Chanel is still the property of Jews and as such had been legally abandoned by the owners. And so she was, you know, trying to reclaim it back. Unbeknownst to Chanel, though, right? They had legally turned control of Parfum Chanel to Felix Arnio, who was a Christian French businessman. And so they had transferred all the deeds to this dude in 1940, and she's petitioning in 41. So she has no idea this has happened because they were like, nope, this ain't happening. So this legal battle continues, and Chanel hires the French prime minister's son in law as her lawyer to sue, you know, the Wertheimers. Luckily enough, in like, after a while, they come to an agreement. But it doesn't change the fact that she tried to, you know, destroy two Jewish men. And if you think that's where it stops. Oh no, it gets much worse. We don't know exactly why, but Chanel had a codename, Westminster, and a German agent spy number F7 124. So the Germans invade France. She moves into a hotel where the Germans are. She then spends a lot of time with them, having affairs with them, tries to destroy Jewish people. And well, you know what's funny? Women in France were punished for horizontal collaboration with German officers, right? What would happen is they would get their head shaved and stuff and just humiliated and a bunch of other shit. They would be tried and everything. Many things would happen. This didn't happen to Chanel. Oh no. The moment the war was over, she puts this sign up in her store saying that Chanel number five is free to all GIs. Ahaha. And then she gets the hell out of Dodge and fucks off to Switzerland so that she cannot be tried as a Nazi collaborator. Now this to me, does not seem like the actions of an innocent woman. And what do you know? I'm fucking right. So she is involved in a Third Reich plan to take control of Madrid, like Spain. Like, she's part of this. I think I'm gonna go into Operation Model Hut in like a separate betisode because there's just too much of it going on. But basically, yeah. So she gets interrogated in 1944 from the free French Purge Committee, and they're like, oh, we can't find evidence. And fun fact, Chanel started telling people that Winston Churchill had her freed so that she would escape prosecution so she wouldn't have to deal with the shit that she did. But yes, post war, she bollocks off to Switzerland. And you know who stays with her sometimes there? Baron von Dinklage. That's right. That motherfucker is there with her. What? So she's safe and relatively secure in Switzerland and she sells her villa, La Posa, because Switzerland's expensive. You need to have more money. Anywho, business wise, things are, things are changing. So Dior has come onto the scene with his new look and it is just overtaking everything. You've got all these, like, male designers really taking over at this point. You've got Balenciaga, Piguet, fath, Dior, obviously. And she was like, she fucking hated these designs. You know, the cinched waist, the boobs, like the very feminine, the very. Lots of fabric, lots of shapes. She despised this. And she was like, female designers will just rebel against this. Argh. And you know, so Anyway, Chanel's like 70 or over 70 at this point and her, you know, her couture house, her Maison Couturier has been closed for, I don't know, nearly two decades. And she's like, I need to re. Enter the fucking fashion wall. And Pierre Wertheimer, who. Oh, how do I put this? Clearly did not hold a grudge and also liked making money and knew he could. He financially just backs this comeback collection. And so how do I put this? So, like, a lot of. A lot of the French press are really apprehensive to like comment on it, but like, America and Britain were all like, oh, look at Chanel, look at the clean lines. It's beautiful, it's amazing. And of course, this is the creation of the Chanel suit. As she moved to the 60s and into like the early 70s, Chanel's getting angrier and intense and not fun to be around. Tyrannical is actually the word that's used most often. But she is still living at the Ritz. She went back there because, of course she fucking did. She is preparing the spring catalog and she goes for a long drive in the afternoon and she's feeling kind of shitty. She comes back and she says to her maid, you see, this is how you die. Because she has her maid with her and the hotel rhetts. She then goes to bed and the very next day, Gabrielle Coco Chanel passes away on Sunday 10th January, 1971 at the Hotel Ritz at the age of 87. And frankly, she lived far too long for someone who was so much of an arsehole. You know how sometimes they say that you can separate art from the artists? I don't think that's the case here. If you look at any of Chanel's designs, they're very austere, they're very right wing in their shape. Like, there is no. Like, she is clearly inspired by this, you know, so here's the thing. I love the perfume Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel. I thought it was amazing, but I actually just stopped wearing it when, you know, I learned initially about Chanel's involvement. And then like a few years ago, I had discovered, you know, the situation with the Wertheimers and the fact that they owned the company. They are the ones who, who had it, you know, they claimed it back and their descendants still own the fucking thing. So the very people she tried to destroy, they still own that company. And I see that as a massive fuck you to Coco Chanel. And as such, like, that was the point. I decided to start wearing the perfume again. And that's why I don't mind wearing Chanel stuff, because she lost in the end. I mean, I wish she lost harder. And as a woman, I have heard the phrase, you know, Coco Chanel always says to take off one accessory before you leave the house. And to that I say, nah, add another one on. Add another one. Wear as many accessories as you fucking like, shove a crown on. It doesn't wear whatever the fuck you want because fuck minimalism, fuck austerity, fuck Coco Chanel. Frankly, she should go choke on a bag of Nazi dicks. The fascist loving twat waffle. Okay, so that's today's tale. If you liked my retelling of this piece of history, feel free to rate and review five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. When you rate and review five stars, it really helps me on the business end. It really pushes me up the charts and it gets more people seeing this podcast and it will really, really help me. It absolutely will. And you don't have to say anything, but you could write anything in there. It doesn't matter. You could insult me. It really doesn't matter. I mean, I do love compliments, so there is that. But anyway, yes, I should give you some recommendations. So reading recommendations, I'm going to go with, Ooh, Advice from Strangers by Rachel Parris. It's just. It's just a good read. For listening, I'm gonna recommend the podcast Trashy Divorces. Just go. You're gonna love it, trust me. And for watching, let's not pretend that the Brunaissance has passed us by. Just watch as many Brendan Fraser films as you can. Talking blast from the past. George of the Jungle, the Mummy, the Mummy Returns. We don't talk about the third one. It's not good. So them. Go watch them. And also Doom Patrol. I mean, you don't get to see his face, but he's funny in it. If you like weird things, you'll like Doom Patrol. But yes, Renaissance. Anyway, I am going to go now and I will chat to you again soon. Adios. Au revoir of Witizen, my friends. Bye bye. It.