The Chanel Sisters

Antoinette and Gabriel “Coco” Chanel always knew they were born for a better lot. Abandoned by their family, they were raised under the care of devout nuns, who prepared girls for a simple life as wives of merchants or shopkeepers. Their secret hiding place under the floorboards, packed with romance novels and magazine clippings—everything they had to keep their dreams of the future alive. Then the time came when the Chanel sisters were supposed to step into the world and, with fierce determination, prove they deserved a society that had never accepted them.

This journey took them from poverty to fashionable cafés, to magnificent halls of Vichy, and to a tiny hat shop in Paris. And while the name of one sister became known worldwide, the second for a long time remained in the shadows. It’s time to find out her story too.