Eliane Heilbronn obituary: matriarch of Chanel

“The matriarch of Chanel” may have been petite but the power she wielded over one of the world’s most successful luxury brands was not. Eliane Heilbronn’s long association with Chanel began when she married Jacques Wertheimer in 1947, when she was a 22-year-old law student at the Sorbonne. An old Jewish family from the Alsace region of northeastern France, the Wertheimers were one of Europe’s richest and most influential dynasties. Jacques was the only son of Pierre, who with his brother, Paul Wertheimer, had in the 1920s diversified the family portfolio by investing in Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s burgeoning perfume brand. In return for a 70 per cent share of the business the brothers agreed to finance and promote the Chanel No 5 scent, leaving Coco

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