Coco Chanel Was Offered $1 Million to Dress Hollywood

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If you haven't had a chance to pick up Justine Picardi's latest Coco Chanel biography entitled Chanel: Her Life, the good people over at C magazine have taken the liberty to share a lengthy excerpt from it. In short, the chapter focuses on Chanel's time in Hollywood in the '30s, after she was commissioned by famed film producer Samuel Goldwyn to dress his stars on and off screen.

Intriguing bits from the piece include how the iconic fashion designer was presented a whopping $1 million contract for only a month of work to "reorganize the dressmaking department of United Artists studios and anticipate fashions six months ahead, solving thereby the eternal problem of keeping gowns up to date," which was a heck of a lot of money back then.

Goldwyn also pulled out all the stops for Madame Chanel's first day on the job in March of 1931, reserving an all-white train for her as she traveled from NY to LA and stocked it with "large quantities of French champagne, Russian caviar and American journalists." Upon arrival she was greeted by legendary starlets like Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Claudette Colbert. Read the full excerpt here.
· Coco's La La Land [C Magazine]