Gabrielle Chanel (Coco) Continued

Aged 20, she went to work in a shop specialising in trousseaux and layettes and would sing in the evenings in the cafés in Moulins (including the Grand Café which has kept its 19th century Belle Epoque look) She only knew two songs, one of them notably Qui a vu Coco dans l’Trocadéro. So it was that Gabrielle became Coco. Before moving to Paris and the success that everyone knows about, she worked as a dressmaker and as a server of water at the spa in Vichy. In 1910 she opened her first clothes shop in Paris and then founded a fashion house in Biarritz in 1915.

       

The crazy years of the 1920s followed the first world war, women gained their freedom and Chanel dresses achieved a phenomenal success. Every woman wanted to look like 'Coco' Chanel.

Anne of France

Anne de France, eldest daughter of Louis XI, was born in Genappe in 1461. At the age of 12 she was married to Pierre de Beaujeu, future duke of Bourbon and so she later became duchess of Bourbon. During the minority of her brother, the future king Charles VIII, she was regent with her husband. Although she was very young (23 years old at the death of Louis XI), she was an excellent administrator. By restoring the royal authority and working for the expansion of the kingdom she continued the work of her father. She brought the Hundred Years War to a definitive end and married her brother Charles VIII to Anne of Brittany in order to gain possession of Brittany. She died at Chantelle in 1522.

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