Coco Chanel Quotes
134 Coco Chanel Quotes
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[On reading Louise de Vilmorin’s notes on her life story] But this is a novel!
Coco Chanel
[On receiving a suggestion in her old age that she see a psychiatrist] I, who never told the truth to my priest?
Coco Chanel
[On her birth] My father wasn’t there. The poor woman who was my mother was on her way to join him. I won’t tell this somber story because it’s terribly boring, but my mother suddenly felt faint. With the fashion of the day it was hard to see that the woman was going to have a baby, so some very nice people brought her home with them.
Coco Chanel
[On playing in a church cemetery when she was young] I told myself that the dead are not really dead as long as people think about them.
Coco Chanel
I lived with people who were insensitive, I wanted to be sure that I was loved. I liked to talk to myself and didn’t do what I was told. That, no doubt, comes from the fact that the first being to whom I opened my heart were dead people.
Coco Chanel
People have said I cried when I was at my aunts’ because they called me Gabrielle. I wasn’t easy to handle.
Coco Chanel
[Aunts could be Orphanage Nun’s] I’ve been ungrateful toward the odious aunts. I owe them everything. A child in revolt becomes a person with armor and strength. It’s the kisses, caresses, teachers and vitamins that kill children and turn them into unhappy or sickly adults. It’s the mean and nasty aunts who create winners, and give them inferiority complexes, although in my case the result was a superiority complex. Under nastiness looms strength, under pride a taste for success and a passion for grandeur.
Coco Chanel
[On her father leaving his mother and her two daughters] Why should he worry about his two daughters? He knew they were in good hands and that they were being given an education. He didn’t give a damn. He had other kids. I would have done the same thing. I don’t think that before thirty anyone can stay faithful to things like that.
Coco Chanel
[When she was twenty and being upset about a death] Don’t tell me what I’m felling. Since my earliest childhood I’ve been certain that they’ve taken everything away from me, that I’m dead. I knew that when I was twelve. You can die more than once in your life.
Coco Chanel
Today… arrogance is in everything I do. It is in my gestures, the harshness of my voice, in the glow of my gaze, in my sinewy, tormented face, in my whole person.
Coco Chanel
A narrow outlook will choke you.
Coco Chanel
You have no idea what damages provincial attics can cause to young minds.
Coco Chanel
God, are you lucky to have racehorses…
Coco Chanel
[On being 16 years old] I just didn’t know anything. I understood in the broadest sense, but I had to teach myself.
Coco Chanel
They were wealthy men who had no idea who this girl was who came into their lives.
Coco Chanel
You find her pretty? She looks dowdy, tacky.
Coco Chanel
I had never been in an automobile. I found them terribly ugly. What a horror, there are not even any horses.
Coco Chanel
I can’t earn my living riding horses. I think I’d like to work.
Coco Chanel
I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.
Coco Chanel
In 1919 I woke up famous. I’d never guessed it. If I’d known I was famous, I’d have stolen away and wept. I was stupid. I was supposed to be intelligent. I was sensitive and very dumb.
Coco Chanel
In 1919 I woke up famous and with a new friend who was to give its full meaning to my success.
Coco Chanel
Nothing is ugly as long as it is alive.
Coco Chanel
Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.
Coco Chanel
Great loves too must be endured.
Coco Chanel
Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
Coco Chanel
I was a rebellious child, a rebellious lover, a rebellious couturiere – a real devil.
Coco Chanel
The best color in the whole world is the one that looks good on you.
Coco Chanel
You ask if they were happy. This is not a characteristic of a European. To be contented – that’s for the cows.
Coco Chanel
Fashion has become a joke; the designers have forgotten that there are women inside the dresses. Most women dress for men and want to be admired. But they must also be able to move, to get into a car without bursting their seams! Clothes must have a natural shape.
Coco Chanel
Most women dress for men and want to be admired. But they must also be able to move, to get into a car without bursting their seams!
Coco Chanel
Clothes must have a natural shape.
Coco Chanel
[On Christian Dior he] Doesn’t dress women, he drapes them.
Coco Chanel
Fashion must come up from the streets.
Coco Chanel
One should not seek happiness, but rather happy people.
Coco Chanel
If you’re born without wings, do nothing to preclude them from growing…
Coco Chanel
Get up early, work hard. It won’t hurt: your mind will be busy, your body active…
Coco Chanel
[On the death of Capel in a road accident] His death was a terrible blow to me. In losing Capel, I lost everything. What followed was not a life of happiness I have to say.
Coco Chanel
Fashion fades, only style remains the same.
Coco Chanel
[On where perfume should be worn.] Wherever one wants to be kissed.
Coco Chanel
A dress isn’t right if it is uncomfortable… A dress must function; place the pockets accurately for use, never a button without a button-hole. A sleeve isn’t right unless the arm moves easily.
Coco Chanel
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