Coco Chanel invented a style vocabulary — white camellias, the black gown, the double-C emblem, the elongated octagon form of the Chanel No. 5 perfume stopper — and she surrounded herself with these inspirations in her posh Paris apartment.
Situated at 31 Rue Cambon, the apartment sits atop the Chanel boutique and couture salon, in which models showed collections to potential buyers. Today, the apartment can be utilized for press interviews and style shoots — and, of course, for haute couture customers.
To enter Chanel’s world, you scale a curved stairs up measures carpeted in beige, with white trim. When fresh sets were introduced, Chanel watched them being modeled from these stairs. During the show, she’d sit perched on the next step down from her apartment, facing a wall of mirrors. Looking down, she could see the models and the audience response to the clothing — without anyone seeing her.
Chanel’s apartment is filled with visible perfections — crystal chandeliers, glistening mirrors, pairs of gilded Chinese horses, an ancient Russian icon from her friend Igor Stravinsky, a golden hand her friend Alberto Giacometti sculpted for her, along with a shaft of wheat painted by her friend Salvador Dali.
We could only aspire to reach a portion of Chanel’s elegance and style. Check out this ideabook to comprehend how it is possible to bring her appearance to your inside.
Elliott Kaufman
While Coco’s space was lined with books and adorned using a well-curated assortment of objects, the living room is where Coco would conduct interviews. Only a select few were permitted to sit on the tan suede couch — the color and substance being favorites with her.
MARK MORRIS DESIGN GROUP
Similar for this photo, upstairs at the apartment of Chanel is exactly what they called the nest of an exotic bird. It’s filled with antique lacquered Chinese screens — white camellias are a part of the pattern. Chanel flattened the colored screens like wallpaper, or folded at the entryway into her drawing room.
SDG Architecture, Inc..
A mirrored spiral staircase supplied Coco a way to watch editor’s responses at fashion displays on the ground below and leads upstairs into the top-floor atelier where Karl Lagerfeld works and down into haute couture fitting chambers and into the ground-floor boutique.
Born a Leo on Aug. 19, 1883, Chanel surrounded herself with models of lions in wood, silver, bronze or alabaster for her apartment at 31 Rue Cambon. The lion became a classic biographical seal on numerous of the creations.
Elad Gonen
In the quilted pillows to the”5″s and interlocking”C”s hidden in Coco’s apartment chandelier, so it is apparent that Mme. Chanel had an eye for detail.
Garret Cord Werner Architects & Interior Designers
The notion of”luxury for yourself” was an important Chanel principle. Mirrored surfaces along with a red carpet simply add to the fashionista element.
In the end of the 1920’s, Chanel had a love affair with the Duke of Westminster, the richest man in England. Sitting on the desk of her apartment are three vermeil boxes given to Gabrielle Chanel from the Duke.
The metal which adorns them is less valuable than the one hidden inside: a golden inside. It was thanks to the Duke of Westminster that Coco Chanel found this characteristic of luxury which she left her own: some thing which remains hidden, which is only for oneself. This notion of luxury found an immediate echo in the fashion universe since, based on Coco Chanel, elegance stems from being as beautiful inside as outside.
Tracy Murdock Allied ASID
Whenever Coco went to her apartment on Rue Cambon, there were requests to spray Chanel No. 5 round the stairway so her signature odor would greet her.
Hint: Permit your layout feed all of the senses. Have your room not to be visually attractive although welcoming through your favourite scent, too.
This palette matches the Coco style. She chosen a low-slung chair — so the chair’s shape would lineup with hemlines.
Could you go Coco?