Coco Chanel as a guest at Schloss Mittersill

Coco Chanel was already an icon during her lifetime and embodied the lifestyle of high society like no other.

Her name has long since become a legend: a synonym for elegance, luxury and the emancipation of women. She was the only female fashion designer to be counted among the most influential personalities of the 20th century by Time Magazine. However, she was by no means born with these attributes. Born Gabrielle Chanel in 1883 in a French poorhouse, she was born into impoverished circumstances. Her father was unstable and unable to provide for his family.

So Coco Chanel spent her childhood in a strict orphanage. Slept in an unheated dormitory. And learnt her trade as a dressmaker under the rigid regime of convent nuns. With her ingenious talent and financial start-up aid from her frequently changing and sometimes very wealthy lovers from the financial aristocracy and the arts, Coco Chanel finally managed to rise from humble beginnings with a hat studio to fashion heaven.

She revolutionised the world of women’s fashion. She liberated style-conscious women from the corset of a constricting fashion dictate in the truest sense of the word. Coco Chanel was a pioneer of modern and functional women’s fashion with calf-length skirts or airy trousers, loosely belted tops and short haircuts for self-confident and self-determined women.

She also set standards commercially – her fragrance Chanel N°5, made famous not least by Marilyn Monroe, is still one of the most successful perfumes and best-selling fragrances in the world today and launched the rise of an entire industry.