Coco had a relationship with a German spy, Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, during the Nazi occupation of Paris. She attempted to use Nazi laws to wrest control of her perfume company (Parfums Chanel) from her Jewish business partners, the Wertheimers.

Before Coco, women wore feathers, glitter, and suffocating whalebone. The "trending" aesthetic was opulent Edwardian excess. Coco introduced jersey fabric—a material used for men’s underwear—into women’s high fashion.

She understood branding before branding existed. She knew how to create scarcity, controversy, and desire. To study is to study the blueprint for how a woman with nothing built an empire by controlling a narrative.