Coco CHANEL

Inside the atelier on rue Cambon in Paris, every seat was taken. It was February 5, 1954, and Coco Chanel was staging her comeback fashion show. All 200 guests turned up, on time, causing a seating scramble – there were critics crammed in corners and huddled on the floor, at the feet of their rivals. Chanel was in her usual position, crouched at the top of the winding staircase, looking down from above.

For almost a decade, Chanel had lived in semi-retirement, first in Switzerland and then at La Pausa, her bougie bolthole on the French Riviera designed as a retreat for her and her lover, the 2nd Duke of Westminster. After the duke died in 1953, Chanel sold the house and moved back to Paris. There, she met with her old business partners, the brothers Wertheimer, who convinced her to return to work.