There is something about Roquebrune Cap Martin. You feel it when you walk down the street. And even when you drive through the winding mountain roads. It has a kind of indefinable class without having designer shops or trendy galleries. It is an aristocratic feeling; that you are somewhere that is actually very exclusive. A feeling from a distant past that still provides that calming class. When we dive into the history of Roquebrune Cap Martin, we come across a famous French entrepreneur: Coco Chanel.
In the late 1920s, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, the trailblazing French fashion designer, sought a retreat from the whirlwind of Paris. At 45, already renowned for her bold designs, Chanel purchased a five-acre plot in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, a picturesque village on the French Riviera, in 1928. This haven, christened La Pausa, became her summer sanctuary from 1929 to 1953, a 24-year chapter where she blended relaxation, inspiration, and the growth of her fashion empire.
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, perched above the Mediterranean between Menton and Monte Carlo, enchanted Chanel with its rugged charm. Olive groves, lavender fields, and the glittering sea offered a stark contrast to Paris’s bustle. “The Côte d’Azur is a magnet for artists,” she told biographer Justine Picardie in a 1930s interview, as noted in Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life. “Roquebrune’s light, the quiet, the ancient hills—it’s where I can breathe and dream.” She adored the village’s simplicity, strolling its steep paths in her revolutionary trousers, a daring sight that turned heads among locals used to rigid fashion norms.
Coco Chanel in Roquebrune Cap Martin: A Sanctuary for Paris
At La Pausa, Chanel’s days started late, a habit from Paris. A thermos of coffee waited outside her door, a courtesy extended to guests. “I wanted a house where life could be lived simply,” she confided to Vogue’s Bettina Wilson in the 1930s, per La Pausa: The Ideal Mediterranean Villa of Gabrielle Chanel. Lunch, served buffet-style in antique silver from England, preceded outings—small cars ferried friends to the sea or nearby Menton for shopping. Her villa buzzed with creativity: Salvador Dalí and Gala lingered for four months in 1938, sketching for her 1939 ballet Bacchanale with Léonide Massine. Pierre Reverdy, Luchino Visconti, and others signed a guest sheet in April 1938, marking La Pausa as a hub for artists.
The landscape of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin fueled her vision. She planted 20 olive trees from Antibes, their silver-green leaves and the lavender blue of the gardens shaping her muted, natural palettes. “In the garden, under the century-old olive trees, reigned a single color—lavender blue,” she said, as recalled by architect Robert Streitz in a 1930s memoir. She’d kneel in the mud to check La Pausa’s foundation, laughing off the dirt, a local worker noted: “She was always very cheerful when she visited.” This simplicity mirrored her designs—elegant yet unfussy.
Building an empire
From Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Chanel tirelessly built her empire. She rode Le Train Bleu from Paris to Monaco, sometimes weekly, overseeing La Pausa’s construction, finished in January 1930. Her exacting eye—sending a workman to Paris to match the facade’s hue—echoed her business precision. By 1931, her Paris ateliers employed 2,400 across 26 workshops, crafting 400 pieces for two yearly shows. Jersey suits, little black dresses, and Chanel No. 5, launched in 1921, soared as women embraced her practical chic. Her “beach pyjamas,” spotted in nearby Juan-les-Pins in 1918, became a 1931 Vogue staple. “My fortune is built on that old jersey that I’d put on because it was cold in Deauville,” she quipped, per Chanel and Her World by Edmonde Charles-Roux.
Her lover, Hugh Grosvenor, the 2nd Duke of Westminster, funded La Pausa, its design echoing the Aubazine Abbey of her youth, with cloisters and stone stairs. This tie to her past, where nuns taught her to sew, drove her ambition. She wove British tweeds from Grosvenor’s world into her collections, pairing them with pearls, a late 1920s signature. Despite the 1929 Wall Street Crash and Grosvenor’s 1930 marriage to another, Chanel pressed on. “Work has always been a kind of drug for me,” she admitted in a 1950s biography. Roquebrune-Cap-Martin’s calm let her innovate, merging comfort and luxury.
For 24 years, La Pausa and Roquebrune-Cap-Martin nurtured Chanel’s spirit. She sold the villa in 1953 after Grosvenor’s death to Emery Reves, who hosted Winston Churchill and Greta Garbo there. In 2016, the House of Chanel reclaimed it, honoring its legacy. “La Pausa was entirely her creation,” Picardie writes, a testament to how Chanel, from this Riviera retreat, redefined fashion, blending the serenity of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin with the audacity of her vision.
Interested to see a movie about the life of Coco Chanel? In 1991, Vanessa Paradis played Coco. Interested in building a legacy in Roquebrune Cap Martin? Contact us!
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