• ‘A dress is neither a tragedy, nor a painting, it is a charming and ephemeral creation, not an everlasting work of art. Fashion should die and die quickly, in order that commerce may survive … The more transient fashion is the more perfect it is. You can’t protect what is already dead.’
• Talked constantly about trains, sometimes even claiming to have been born on a train. Uncle was a railway employee but there seems to be a deeper significance for Chanel; as if they were a connection to a past that was always on the move, yet ran along fixed lines, to a destination of her own choosing.
• If Chanel’s own account is to be believed, by the age of six she was spending as much time as possible in a graveyard… ”The dead are not dead as long as we think of them.”
• Rough childhood. Very private person, she always said she was interested in what was ahead of her, not what had already finished.
• Often made up stories, to create a certain image of herself.
• In childhood, Chanel talked about killing herself. “At the time, I often used to think about dying. The idea of causing a great fuss, of upsetting my aunts, of letting everyone know how wicked they were, fascinated me. I dreamt about setting fire to the barn.” “All throughout my childhood I wanted to be loved. Every day I thought about how to kill myself.”
• Gabrielle did not feel herself to be at home anywhere. Her aunt was detached and cold. According to Claude Delay, more than half a century later Chanel ‘still felt the chill’ of rejection, expressing it as if she had been left entirely alone.