Coco Chanel opened her second boutique in Biarritz in 1915.
Chanel’s first major fashion boutique opened in Deauville in 1913, where she sold hats and introduced relaxed clothing suited to leisure and sport. Two years later, she established an expanded business in Biarritz, the French coastal resort on the Atlantic coast near the Spanish border. The location helped her reach wealthy holidaymakers and clients displaced by the First World War.
Biarritz was more than a retail address: it became Chanel’s first true couture base. The resort’s international clientele gave her an important commercial opportunity, while the business allowed her to move beyond millinery into a broader clothing operation. Contemporary accounts often describe it as her first couture house.
The wording can produce a counting dispute because some histories count earlier hat shops and establishments separately. Deauville is generally treated as the first boutique, making Biarritz the second in the straightforward sequence used by this quiz. Nice, Cannes, and Deauville were other fashionable French destinations, but Biarritz is the town linked to the 1915 opening.