Q 01/05

Coco Chanel was born in 1883 in a poorhouse hospital in which Loire Valley town?

A) Saumur

B) Vichy

C) Moulins

D) Limoges

Answer · why

A) Saumur

Saumur was a start she hid for life: Chanel claimed she had been raised by aunts and never admitted the poorhouse.

Q 02/05

What was Coco Chanel's real first name?

A) Gabrielle

B) Juliette

C) Camille

D) Marguerite

Answer · why

A) Gabrielle

Gabrielle was her given name, and the birth register spelt her surname Chasnel, a spelling she never had changed.

Q 03/05

After her mother died, Chanel was sent to the orphanage at which convent, where she learned to sew?

A) Lourdes

B) Aubazine

C) Solesmes

D) Cluny

Answer · why

B) Aubazine

Aubazine stayed with her: decades later she had the abbey's stone staircase echoed in her own Riviera villa.

Q 04/05

Which designer took over the House of Chanel in 1983 and led it until his death in 2019?

A) Yves Saint Laurent

B) Karl Lagerfeld

C) Gianni Versace

D) Hubert de Givenchy

Answer · why

B) Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld arrived twelve years after her death and spent 36 years reworking her suits, pearls and interlocking Cs.

Q 05/05

Where did Chanel make her stage debut as a poseuse, an entertainer between the star turns?

A) A music hall in Paris

B) A casino in Deauville

C) A spa theatre in Vichy

D) A cafe-concert in Moulins

Answer · why

D) A cafe-concert in Moulins

A cafe-concert in Moulins drew the town's cavalry officers, and she sang there at night after days spent sewing.