Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s apartment on Rue Cambon is like walking through Alice’s looking glass… and I’m still pinching myself! On first entering, the apartment it is nothing like I expected. The clean lines and black and white aesthetic that is so synonymous with Chanel doesn’t appear at all and instead, everywhere you look is filled with keepsakes and memories. Highly lacquered Chinese screens, adorned Italian mirrors, antique vases and sculptures. It’s a real scrapbook of her imagination, a dark-red, east-meets-west-inspired memory box. It has been left as if she could walk in at any moment in her iconic white bouclé jacket and sit on the sofa; I’ve since wondered what we’d talk about. There is no bedroom, she used to sleep at the Ritz Hotel a few meters away on Place Vendôme, and only used the apartment to entertain guests, the likes of Dali, Picasso and Elizabeth Taylor. The space is deliciously decadent and opulent and would be a superb playground for my one year old who would probably be attracted to the dozens of animals …