Mays Chanel-trip

With Chanel to Deauville, that's double happiness. Chanel is Chanel is Chanel (times a thousand hundred million eighty-four to Pluto and back and a quarter, my daughter would say) and let me now also have a special relationship with Deauville. The fashionable seaside resort where Parisians shake off the week and celebrate the weekend was also one of the first places I visited with my beloved. Back then, I was wearing Coco Mademoiselle, a perfume that had just come out and that – when I smell it – still brings me back in a sigh to that time. If I could have whispered to that young woman back then what was still waiting for her later in Chanel-wise, I think I would have been catapulted through the ceiling with happiness.

So Deauville. And Chanel. Of course, we are not here just for fun. Just for fun doesn't exist at Chanel. Deauville was the place where Gabrielle Chanel opened her first boutique. She saw the white wall, painted ‘CHANEL’ in black letters on it, borrowed money from her beloved Arthur, Boy, Chapel and just started. In Deauville, the wealthy ladies came and Gabrielle immediately applied marketing lesson number 1: sit where your clientele is.

That the journey to Deauville would be a surprise. I fantasized about a carriage (nah, takes too long), a hot air balloon (probably not, too risky with the weather and would all the fashion girls dare to do that?) or maybe a classic train. Once in Paris, the Orient Express was waiting for us. Complete with men in double-breasted red suits, train tickets (première classe naturellement) and a glass of champagne. I fantasize about Agatha Christie who found the idea for ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ on this train and about Ian Fleming who features the train in ‘From Russia With Love’. I also want to read Graham Greene's ‘Stamboul Train’ right away.

I cautiously fantasize about our hotel, because that was also a surprise. Could it be Le Normandy? The most iconic hotel in Deauville with its half-timbered style and a special room decorated for Anouk Aimée, one of my favorite actresses of all time who also stars in ‘Un Homme et une Femme’, one of my favorite films of all time that partly takes place in Deauville.

We are sleeping in Le Normandy. Of course, there is a calligraphed envelope with my name on my bed. A bag, the iconic marinière shirt (but from Chanel) and of course the three new scents: Les Eaux de Chanel. Of course, the story continues, but you are busy too, so more tomorrow.