Keep your head, heels and standards high – a Coco Chanel quote or not?

A quote often attributed to Coco Chanel implores women to keep their heads, heels and standards high. But did Coco Chanel actually say this?

To the disappointment of fashion quote-a-holics everywhere, it’s actually very unlikely that Chanel said that women should always keep their heads, heels and standards high.

And, while it’s almost impossible to prove that someone never said something, in this case we’re confident that the attribution of the “head, heels and standards” quote to Coco Chanel is a myth. Here’s why. 

A quote without a source

If you are are looking for the source of the heads, heels and standards high quote, then you won’t find it here. And you won’t find it anywhere else either.

The heads, heels and standards quote is simply unsourced: there’s just no evidence that Coco Chanel uttered these words in her lifetime.

Chanel lived between 1883 and 1971 yet no book, magazine or interview has been found that was published during her lifetime and directly attributes the advice to words the French designer.

This means that if you’ve found the source of the “keep your head, heels and standards high” quote then you are the first one. Nobody else has actually sourced this quote to Coco Chanel with anything approaching authority or even the flimsiest evidence.

Of course that hasn’t stopped plenty of writers quoting the lines in books, magazines, on websites and printed as artwork or on cushions. But you can safely bet that they can’t provide any proof that Coco Chanel said the lines.

The fact that lots of people think she did is not proof of anything. Mistaken beliefs about the wording or author of quotations are commonplace. That’s probably why you’ve come here.

A quote that is unlikely

Secondly, the quote is unlikely. For one thing, would Chanel really have told women to keep their heels high? Coco Chanel herself rarely wore high heels.

In fact the whole thrust of the Chanel movement was about liberating women from restrictive clothing and footwear. Coco Chanel loved wearing ballet flats!

Indeed the only heel Coco Chanel designed of note was a low-heeled slingback with her initials emblazoned on it. That’s hardly keeping your head, heels or standards high!

And that’s before we even get to language: Coco Chanel did speak both English and French but nobody attributes a French version of the quote to her.

Yes, she could have spoken it in English (even though French was her native language) but then there’s still the problem that nobody seems to have actually recorded this. The only language that the supposed quote is circulating in is English.

31 Coco Chanel quotes that she did actually say

It is most likely that the “keep your head, heels and standards high” quote is one of many that are attributed to Coco Chanel because it sounds like something she would have said.

This is probably correct since Chanel did utter a lot of quotes during her lifetime.

If you’re looking for an authentic Coco Chanel quote then you’re in luck: we’ve taken 31 Coco Chanel quotes in French and run them through Google Translate for your reading pleasure.

The quotes are interesting but they don’t include telling women to always keep their heads, heels and standards high.