In this post we’ll read the best Coco Chanel quotes who was a French fashion designer and businesswoman.
Coco Chanel, original name Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, (1883–1971) was born into poverty in Saumur, France, and grew up in orphanages after the death of her mother. She learned to sew as a child and worked as a seamstress and cabaret singer before launching her career in fashion.
Coco Chanel opened her first boutique in Paris and she quickly gained fame for her creations including the Chanel suit, featuring a collarless jacket and straight skirt, and the Chanel No. 5 perfume, which became one of the best-selling and most recognizable fragrances in the world.
Her signature designs were characterized by simplicity, elegance, and comfort and she revolutionized women’s clothing and fashion in the 20th century.
Here are some of the most iconic Coco Chanel quotes on fashion, style, beauty, and more.
Coco Chanel Quotes
1. “Dress like you are going to meet your worst enemy today.”
2. “I wanted to give a woman comfortable clothes that would flow with her body. A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed.”
3. “There have been several Duchesses of Westminster but there is only one Chanel!”
4. “My friends, there are no friends.”
5. “One cannot be forever innovating. I want to create classics.”
6. “The best color in the whole world is the one that looks good on you.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Fashion
1. “Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”
2. “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”
3. “Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.”
4. “Fashion is made to become unfashionable.”
5. “Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejeuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous.”
6. “I don’t do fashion. I am fashion.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Women
1. “I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men.”
2. “Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants.”
3. “Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor.”
4. “As soon as you set foot on a yacht you belong to some man, not to yourself, and you die of boredom.”
5. “A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.”
6. “I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.”
7. “As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!”
8. “Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.”
9. “Look for the woman in the dress. If there is no woman, there is no dress.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Success
1. “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
2. “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.”
3. “There are people who have money and people who are rich.”
4. “Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.”
5. “Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them.”
6. “To achieve great things, you must first dream.”
7. “Gentleness doesn’t get work done unless you happen to be a hen laying eggs.”
8. “If you were born without wings, do nothing to prevent them from growing.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Love
1. “There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time!”
2. “I only drink Champagne on two occasions, when I am in love and when I am not.”
3. “Great loves too must be endured.”
4. “The more stupid and unlucky man is, the more claims he makes to the woman.”
5. “Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains.”
6. “It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person. I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I’ve done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Beauty
1. “Fashion has two purposes: comfort and love. Beauty comes when fashion succeeds.”
2. “Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.”
3. “Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance!”
4. “It is always better to be slightly underdressed.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Luxury
1. “Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.”
2. “Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.”
3. “Whoever said money can’t buy happiness, didn’t know where to go shopping.”
4. “It’s not the appearance, it’s the essence. It’s not the money, it’s the education. It’s not the clothes, it’s the class.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Elegance
1. “A woman can be overdressed but never over elegant.”
2. “Elegance is refusal.”
3. “Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.”
4. “Elegance is when the inside is as beautiful as the outside.”
5. “Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”
6. “Elegance does not consist in putting on a new dress.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Lipstick
1. “If you’re sad, add more lipstick and attack.”
2. “If you’re sad, if you are disappointed in love, put on your makeup, give yourself some beauty care, put on lipstick, and attack.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Life
1. “A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life.”
2. “The best things in life are free. The second-best are very expensive.”
3. “My life didn’t please me, so I created my life.”
4. “Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.
5. “You live but once; you might as well be amusing.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Being Yourself
1. “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
2. “Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.”
3. “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”
4. “How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.”
5. “I don’t care what you think of me. I don’t think of you at all.”
6. “You were born an original, don’t become a copy !”
7. “Only those with no memory insist on their originality.”
8. “A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”
9. “Be who you are, not who the world wants you to be.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Jewelry
1. “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take at least one thing off.”
2. “Accessories are what makes or marks a woman.”
3. “Lace is one of the most wonderful imitations of nature. But pearls are perfect for every occasion.”
4. “My jewels represent an idea, first and foremost! I wanted to cover women with constellations.”
5. “Jewelry is not unchanging. Life transforms it and makes it bend to its requirements.”
6. “A woman needs ropes and ropes of pearls.”
7. “It’s the theatrical aspect of jewelry that fascinates me.”
8. “I want my jewelry to be like ribbons in a woman’s hands. Supple and flexible.”
9. “Jewelry is an ornament.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Perfume
1. “A women who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.”
2. “Where should one use perfume?” a young woman asked. “Wherever one wants to be kissed.”
Coco Chanel Quotes on Age
1. “A woman has the age she deserves.”
2. “I am not young but I feel young. The day I feel old, I will go to bed and stay there. J’aime la vie! I feel that to live is a wonderful thing.”
3. “No matter the age, a woman who is unloved is lost – unloved she might as well die.”
4. “You can be gorgeous at thirty, charming at forty, and irresistible for the rest of your life.”
5. “Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.”
These Coco Chanel quotes reflect her enthusiasm for fashion and she gained a reputation for her innovative designs, which challenged the conventions of women’s fashion at the time.
The fashion house she founded, Chanel, remains one of the most prestigious and influential luxury brands in the world.
Her contributions to the world of fashion and her lasting impact on women’s style and empowerment have solidified her status as a fashion icon and cultural legend.
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