Synopsis

What challenges lie along the road to freedom? It is the spring of 1913, and unusual, bold dresses and hats with soft, linear lines appear on the streets of Deauville. They are the creations of Gabrielle Chanel—but her friends call her Coco—a sensitive and rebellious girl who has just opened her second boutique here. Gabrielle's life and fashion are marked by the pursuit of freedom: freedom from social conventions, from long, unwearable trains, from the exotic trappings and corsets that oppressed the female body in those years. But her very originality threatens to prevent her from succeeding, in fashion and in love, and it is a challenge she cannot afford to miss, despite so many moments of profoundly human fragility. These are the war years, a new world is upon us, and the winds of change blow strong for everyone, forcing each to face choices with no way back: for Gabrielle, who must fight to establish the House of Chanel and create her own space; for Arthur, her great love, who seeks balance between past and future, between philosophy and action; and for Aurore, their maid, recently released from the convent, who feels intimidated and uncomfortable by her landlady's unscrupulousness. But for her too, the war will bring unimaginable transformations.