Once upon a time, Gabrielle Chanel was born under the sign of the Leo, to a traveling peddler and a laundress, who died at 32, exhausted by life.

Once upon a time, there was a father who abandoned his five children and had his three daughters sent away to an orphanage.

At 12 years old, Gabrielle would never see him again.

Forever after, she pretended that he had left to make his way in America.

Once upon a time, there was an orphanage behind the walls of a convent, the Abbey of Aubazine, where Gabrielle spent nearly seven years.

The Romanesque purity of this ascetic world would inspire her sense of austerity and her taste for black and white, while the opulence of religious garments and ceremonial objects would spark her fascination with Baroque style, gold and colored gems in years to come.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl who spent her days sewing and her nights singing in a cabaret before troops of cavalrymen.

She was called Coco because she often sang,

Who's seen Coco in the Trocadero?

She always preferred to pretend that Coco was the nickname given to her by her father.

Once upon a time, a young woman with a boyish allure refused to ride side-saddle on the horses of a well-born cavalier, Étienne Balzon.

She dressed like no one else, taking her inspiration from masculine attire and inventing new styles of hat, which she stripped off their birds and feathers to make them simpler, lighter, more chic.

Her first clients were working girls, but society quickly followed.

Once upon a time, there was a great love, named Boy Capel, English, wealthy and cultivated.

He was the man of her dreams.

He introduced her to literature, the orient and the esoteric.

Boy helped Coco become Chanel.

She decided to open her first boutiques in Paris, Deville and Biarritz.

She wanted to work to win her liberty.

Once upon a time, a revolution came to pass when, in a stroke of genius, Coco Chanel transformed the female silhouette.

She shortened dresses, revealed ankles, freed the waist, eliminated corsets, revived jersey, cut her hair and bronzed her skin.

Chanel closed one era and launched a new century of fashion.

Once upon a time, at 31 Rue Cambon, Mademoiselle Chanel opened her first couture house in Paris in 1918.

The little country girl, the orphan of Aubazine, had become the queen of Paris.

Before liberating women, she had liberated herself.

Once upon a time, there was a love story that ended abruptly.

Boy Capel died in a car accident.

For the first and last time, Coco Chanel was seen to cry.

Either I die as well, she said, or I finish what we started together.

She chose to go on.