EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN: Coco Chanel

They seemed to have it all – glamour, power, wealth and adoration. Grace Kelly, Coco Chanel, Audrey Hepburn, Indira Gandhi, Madame Chiang Kai-shek... they were worshiped, loved and sometimes even feared by millions the world over. These were the pioneers who showed that a woman could be the equal of any man. But behind the public success, there was so often private heartache and personal tragedy. Featuring archive, interviews and dramatic re-enactment, this series reveals the price these extraordinary women paid for their achievements. Yet in the end, they overcame all adversities to emerge as triumphant, inspirational icons of the 20th century.

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Fashion designer Coco Chanel (1883 - 1971) rose from the poorhouse in France’s Loire Valley, to create a style of liberating clothing that changed the face of women’s fashion forever. (Agency reference 72384900)

Courtesy of © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images (1920)

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Coco Chanel with Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, the 2nd Duke of Westminster. Her liaisons with a string of high profile and powerful men allowed her to enhance her status, attract suitable clientele and further build her legacy, The House of Chanel. (Agency reference 3062613)

Courtesy of © Hulton Archive/Getty Images (1925)

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Coco Chanel enjoys the company of prominent figure Winston Churchill and his son Randolph. Determined to associate the Chanel brand with high society, she constantly surrounded herself with the rich, famous, and royalty alike. (Agency reference 2665814)

Courtesy of © Hulton Archive/Getty Images (1928)

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Gabrielle Chanel, the French couturier known as ‘Coco’, began her life with modest means to become one of the world’s greatest style icons. (Agency reference 2636759)

Courtesy of © Evening Standard/Getty Images (1932)

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French designer, Coco Chanel, paved the way for couture fashion and her international fashion legacy still lives on today. (Agency reference 56216880)

Courtesy of Lipnitzki/ © Roger Viollet/Getty Images (1936)

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French designer Coco Chanel spent her life building The House of Chanel in Paris, which still remains one of the top design worldwide houses today. (Agency reference 56226933)

Courtesy of Lipnitzki/ © Roger Viollet/Getty Images (1937)

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By having a career and enjoying a liberated love life, French couturier Coco Chanel symbolized the post-war aspirations of a generation of newly emancipated women, becoming an industry leader in a previously male dominated fashion world. (Agency reference 89865776)

Courtesy of Apic/ © Hulton Archives/Getty Images (1952)

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Coco Channel, proprietress of The House of Chanel; the most famous fashion name of the 20th century and the epitome of luxury and style. (Agency reference 56226860)

Courtesy of Lipnitzki/ © Roger Viollet/Getty Images (1958)

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French fashion designer Coco Chanel built The House of Chanel, a legacy of glamour that lasts to this very day. She passed away on January 10, 1971, at the age of 88 and still officially working. (Agency reference 9518187)

Courtesy of © Getty Images (1959)

"Coco Chanel" - She was an illegitimate child, born into a poorhouse and abandoned in an orphanage, but Coco Chanel rose from unimaginable poverty to create the most iconic fashion brand of the 20th century, The House of Chanel. With steely ambition, she took advantage of wealthy lovers, rose to the top in a male-dominated world, and created a style of clothing that changed the face of women’s fashion forever. She encouraged women to dress comfortably, with simplicity and for themselves, rather than their men. Starting with a modest hat shop in Paris, an Empire grew and the House of Chanel came to epitomize luxury and style.

Yet behind the success, lay a hidden story of wartime collaboration with the Nazis and a lifetime of disastrous affairs with unsuitable lovers, including the Duke of Westminster, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and Nazi spy Hans Gunther von Dincklage. Always a mistress, never a wife, Coco's longing for love nearly cost her everything.

Yet at the age of 88, when she died at her Ritz apartment in Paris, Coco Chanel was officially still working. She triumphed over the adversity of her lowly birth and two world wars, and clung onto her fashion empire which, to this day, continues to be successful and respected the world over.

Distributed by BBC Worldwide