13 A

1.     What surprised me the most about Gabrielle “Coco” Channel is how she made Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20^th century. Normally fashion icon is not the first type of person that pops into my head when I think of Time magazine, but because of her iconic Channel No.5 perfume that is still worldwide today and her famed interlocked-CC monogram that has been used since the 1920s, Ms. Channel is quite the fashion staple.

-       What I most admired about her is her fearlessness and rather free-spirit. She would hang around whoever she wanted and date whoever she pleased, despite certain situations going on around her (like WW1). She would do whatever made her truly happy. I also really admire that she came from practically nothing (like a lot fo entrepreneurs) and made herself to be one of the most iconic figures in not only fashion but the rest of the world, and her legacy still continues today.

-       Her mother dies at just the age of 11, and her and her three sisters were separated from their father and the rest of the siblings and sent to an orphanage.

2.     She seemed to be very frugal. As well as hard and strict discipline upon herself. She was also quite skill full at sewing, which she learned to do while at the orphanage, and this would of course be a huge contributor to her career as a designer.

3.     One part of the reading that was confusing to me was how despite the rathe rough childhood and upbringing that she endured after her mother passed away, she chose to take a different approach when explaining or talking about it. She would sometimes even lie and talk about how her upbringing was rather glamourous. There are several times where she would lie about what decade she was born in or talk about how here father sailed to America after her mothers death to seek fortune. But these stories are presumed to be untrue. Which is odd as to why she would lie; she came from such a humble and ordinary background and truly made something enormous out of herself.

4.     Did you ever thing you would become such a legend and icon in the fashion industry?

-       Did you ever picture people still spending thousands of dollars on your products almost 100 years after you initially created them.

5.     I personally think at first, creating and sewing fashion pieces was more of a hobby or fun element to her lifestyle that she would use to kind of distract herself from the past and what was currently going on in her life.