Maureen Chiquet's move from Chanel to self-empowerment

Purchase, New York

ON the first floor of Maureen Chiquet's sprawling home here - past the Kiki Smith bronze nude of a man jutting from a wall and the Dustin Yellin sculpture in the foyer; past the dining room with its "casual" crystal chandelier from a Paris antique market - is a sunroom-turned-meditation room bathed in natural light with a few large pillows scattered around the floor and a Buddha's head on a low table.

On the second floor, up the curving stair and off to the side of the serene master bedroom suite, tucked away in a dressing room hung with portraits by painter Alice Neal and some small sketches of Coco Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld, is a walk-in closet filled with multiple pairs of pressed jeans in varying states of fade hung neatly on hangers below a rack of crisp shirts and jackets, which for over a decade almost entirely bore Chanel labels.