Still crazy about Coco
By Susannah Frankel NZ Herald Thursday Oct 7, 2010
A new book about Coco Chanel captures the spirit of the great designer. Here Viva explores how Chanel revolutionised women’s fashion, and why, even 25 years after Karl Lagerfeld took over, the label remains as iconic as ever.
Ask Karl Lagerfeld to sum up – in only 10 words – the power of Chanel and it’s no great surprise when the great couturier, who – let’s face it – is far from a shrinking violet where his dealings with the media are concerned, comes back with a rather longer answer than that.
Chanel encapsulates the idea of “modernity” first and foremost, he says. It embodies “a contemporary attitude – whatever the time or the decade”. Chanel also stands for “luxury” and “the power of the logo”. The iconic double C branding is surely the most instantly recognisable in fashion history.
Also, for Chanel, read “the power of the handbag – the most famous in the world”. Lagerfeld speaks here of the “2.55″ in particular, named after its date of birth in February 1955, quilted, to keep its shape and echoing the texture of classic British outerwear, originally favoured by jockeys.
(Chanel, for her part, favoured jockeys in return, but more of that later.) Suspended from a gilt shoulder strap, this was the first purse designed for a woman ensuring her hands were free.
The white camellia, too, says Lagerfeld, is an integral part of the story. It was Chanel’s favourite flower and her successor has, in the past, coloured it every which way – on one particularly memorable occasion, even casting it in diamonds the size of boiled sweets as the single closure to a perfectly cut Chanel haute couture jacket.
“I also love camellias,” Lagerfeld goes on to confirm, “and gardenias. But I love old-style-looking roses too, like the ones you can only find in Paris at Odorantes in Rue Madame.” The black ribbon bow – today a staple of every couture catwalk and no longer just Chanel’s own – is treated with similar diversity. “We do this in all kinds of shapes, colours and materials,” Lagerfeld says.
Perhaps more significantly, the Chanel name stands also for “timelessness, but for fashion at the same time” – while the recipe may be updated each season in line with the mood of the moment, the main ingredients remain the same – and for “the two-tone shoe, not only the pump but also “the ballerina’ and so forth”. Chanel gave this to the world in 1957 – the first pair had a sling-back – in beige with a black tip, which has the miraculous effect of foreshortening the foot and lengthening the leg. Then, continues Lagerfeld, there’s “the magic address: 31 Rue Cambon”. Chanel set up shop as a milliner in that street in Paris for the first time in 1910. The plaque on the door originally read “Chanel Modes”. Although now significantly expanded, it remains the company’s headquarters.
Lagerfeld goes on to cite “the mystery of the Coromandel screens she loved and which have inspired her”: it is the stuff of fashion folklore that Chanel was always surrounded and indeed shielded by particularly fine examples of these. Finally, the world has Chanel to thank for “the mixing of real and fake jewellery and the invention of fashion costume jewellery”, enjoying something of a resurgence just now, incidentally, as seen at the most recent round of international collections everywhere from Balenciaga to Lanvin and from Louis Vuitton to, well, Chanel.
True to her unusually democratic stance, Chanel herself thought nothing of mixing diamonds and paste, real pearls with great ropes of more reasonably priced approximations. She wore them well and today Lagerfeld embellishes everything from sunglasses to handbags with more of the same.
“You see,” Lagerfeld argues with an energy and enthusiasm that belie his years, “here are already 12 reasons and you asked for 10 … That shows the power – and the staying power – of Chanel. The image, the fashion and the idea of the woman herself as the first modern one. It is the idea of modernity, a life and a lifestyle that women can identify with.”
It is now over 25 years since Lagerfeld took to the helm of France’s most famous fashion house. Chanel died in January 1971 and it seemed only decent that a good decade should go by before anyone dared to step into her supremely influential shoes. It is worth noting that Chanel has remained unswervingly faithful to Lagerfeld – by now the greatest couturier still practising the craft – and Lagerfeld has stayed true to Chanel – today fashion’s best-known name.
Although Lagerfeld is the man at the helm of the Chanel brand today, it all began in the hands of the house’s namesake, whose life story is as much a part of the label’s many signatures as a gilt chain is to the hem of the jacket of a Chanel boucle wool suit. After all, if anyone might reasonably be described as an autobiographical designer, it is Chanel.
Equally important is that Chanel’s desire to create clothes sprang above all from her wish to dress herself in a manner she saw fit. She was nothing if not reactionary. “If I embarked on this profession it was precisely to make everything I didn’t like unfashionable,” she once said and she lived and worked by that rule tirelessly. Whichever way one chooses to look at it, the romance of this, perhaps the ultimate rags-to-riches tale, is unprecedented. With this in mind, it is small wonder that, 40 years after her death, not one but two Chanel movies have been made in the past couple of years: Audrey Tautou played the young designer in Coco Avant Chanel which was devoted to her young life; and Marina Hands appeared as the lead in Coco & Igor which told the story of Chanel’s relationship with the composer Stravinsky.
Gabrielle Chanel was born on August 19, 1883, in the French province of Saumur. Her father, Albert Chanel, was a market trader. Her mother, Jeanne Devolle, was of humble origins, bore several children and died young in 1895, leaving her daughter to be educated by the nuns at an orphanage in Aubazine. Gabrielle was taught how to sew there and, when holidaying with her sisters, learned the art of millinery – they loved hats. Aged 20 and based in the garrison town of Moulins, Chanel worked as an assistant in a shop specialising in trousseaux and layettes and then as a seamstress. By night she sang for her supper in cafes and bars and it was there the slim, slight, dark-haired, black-eyed figure first became known as Coco.
In the early years of the 20th century, Chanel moved in with Etienne Balsan, a famous horse breeder, and although not accepted by the elevated echelons of society in which he circulated, she became an accomplished horsewoman and among the first of her sex to dare to wear jodhpurs. In order to deflect the received ideas of a mistress, dressed in the requisite frills and furbelows of the Belle Epoque style, Chanel set to adapting the staples of menswear to her needs, often scandalising others in her entourage by actually wearing men’s clothing. “A woman is always over-dressed and never sufficiently elegant,” she said later and few did more to correct that fact than Chanel.
Her uniform of strictly tailored, unembellished garments topped with nothing more frothy than a straw boater caught on and it wasn’t long before she was making hats, in particular, for her friends.
In her mid-20s Chanel was befriended by an English industrialist, the renowned polo player Arthur “Boy” Capel, who duly installed her in an apartment in Paris where she became his lover and began making hats on a more professional basis. By 1910, interest in her minimal and profoundly modern designs was such that she had outgrown this space and opened the shop at Rue Cambon. It wasn’t long before she had expanded her operation to include a store in Deauville selling clothes as well as hats, and then a fully fledged couture house in Biarritz where, by 1916, she was responsible for 300 employees all dedicated to the task of creating naturally feminine and relatively simple clothing, favouring freedom of movement and rejecting anything even remotely ostentatious or superfluous.
Across the Atlantic – and the American market was as important then as it is today – US Harper’s Bazaar picked up on her success, publishing a picture of what they described as “the charming chemise dress”, again borrowed from menswear – this time, specifically, a man’s shirt. A year later, Chanel cut her lustrous dark hair into a neat bob, the better to suit her naturally androgynous silhouette and sun-tanned skin. Although it is often said that she invented the swimsuit – and it’s certainly true that she went on to craft stretch clothing in jersey, formerly the preserve of nothing more haute than men’s underwear – here Lagerfeld begs to differ.
“There are no images of Chanel in swimsuits and we know only the heavy bathing-suit costumes she designed for the Ballets Russes’ Le Train Bleu,” he says. Jean Cocteau also worked on the 1924 production and the collaboration between the fashion designer and the artist, who later also introduced her to Picasso, was to continue for more than 10 years. “But Chanel embodies the idea of the modern women and so she inherited that image too. People think she was the first. In fact she was not, but she is remembered that way. Now sportswear is all over the world and is not only worn for sport. Some sportswear and some sports did not exist in Chanel’s time, but they represent something she would have liked if she had known it.”
In 1919, Capel, described by Chanel as “the love of her life”, was killed in a car crash and she threw herself into her work creating many of the looks that remain the staple of the contemporary woman’s wardrobe to this day. In 1926 she designed her first “little black dress”; in 1928 she came up with her first tweed suit.
That is not to say that her personal life was anything but colourful. Over the years she was linked to the exiled Russian Grand Duke, Dimitri Pavlovich, related to Tsar Nicholas II, and he introduced her to Ernest Beaux (the perfumier with whom she created Chanel No. 5) and to the sparkling beauty of baroque jewellery. She was also the lover of the second Duke of Westminster, Hugh “Bendor” Grosvenor, who shared her life for 10 years, and whose aristocratic English wardrobe inspired her work continuously. Despite the longevity of their relationship, Chanel refused to marry the Duke. “There have been several Duchesses of Westminster,” she would say. “There is only one Chanel.”
By 1935, Chanel owned five buildings in Rue Cambon, employed 4000 people and was at the height of her power. In 1939, however, and just before the outbreak of war, she closed her couture house, saying: “I thought there wouldn’t be any more dresses.” She would, of course, have been able to live out the rest of her days in splendour, profiting from the sale of accessories and fragrance alone. Throughout the Occupation, Chanel spent most of her time at the Paris Ritz where she conducted an affair with a Nazi officer. At the end of the war she was arrested – though not charged – for collaboration and spent the following years in relative obscurity based in Switzerland. And that could have been that.
Some things are not to be, however, and in 1954, at the grand old age of 71 and spurred on at least in part by her rancour at the immense success of Christian Dior’s proudly people-pleasing and retrogressive New Look, she began designing couture collections once more. Dior, she said, was “a madman” for wanting to put women back into corsets and overblown skirts.
Though the French – by then in thrall not only to Dior but also Cristobal Balenciaga, Pierre Balmain and Jacques Fath – were less than effusive over Chanel’s new designs, emancipated American women were more quick on the uptake, viewing her softly tailored jackets, silk blouses and wrap-over skirts as more fitting for women in the latter part of the 20th century than anything her competitors had to offer.
It wasn’t long before what was described as “The Chanel Look” was restored to its former glory. It upholds its position as purveyor of all that is quintessentially understated and chic to this day.
“I don’t remember the first time I saw the Chanel logo,” says Lagerfeld – in its original form, the double C was the fastening on the 2.55 bag. “But I noticed it when I took over Chanel, when real logo power started all over the world. For a company it is very important today because, much more than in the past, we all sell in parts of the world where they cannot read our writing or understand our languages. In one part – a very big part – of the world it is all about signs when they write. They can memorise perhaps the famous ‘CC’ but they have difficulties reading the name first. They find out later. In the past we sold mostly to people who knew our culture and could read English or French. Now it is only a part of our clientele. Logos are the Esperanto of marketing, luxury and business.”
And there is perhaps no more potent signifier of luxury than the name of Chanel – from the logo itself to the cosmetic and fragrance lines, accessories and, of course, clothing.
Lagerfeld says that these – and he is speaking of the Chanel jacket in particular – have “a staying-power that is difficult to explain”.
The secrets of its success are manifold but inextricably linked to the life, times and pioneering spirit of the late Coco Chanel.
“Many of Chanel’s private dicta have entered into the unspoken rules that still govern fashion,” wrote Cecil Beaton in The Glass of Fashion, published in 1954. “Though Chanel herself echoed the theory that fashions are never revived, it is a tribute to her rare and remarkable practicality, and an anomaly in the annals of recorded fashion, that few of her innovations became dated.”
More than 50 years on, his words continue to resonate, and of that, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel herself would be proud.
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Tags: Arthur "Boy" Capel, Ballets Russes' Le Train Bleu, Cecil Beaton, Chanel jacket, Chanel logo, Christian Dior, Cristobal Balenciaga, Dimitri Pavlovich, Duke of Westminster, emancipated American women, Etienne Balsan, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, Gabrielle Chanel, Hugh "Bendor" Grosvenor, Jacques Fath, Lagerfeld, Paris Ritz, Pierre Balmain, Rue Cambon, Russian Grand Duke, The Chanel Look, The Glass of Fashion, Tsar Nicholas II, US Harper's Bazaar
Dresses are a key fashion trend for summer.
Some floral dresses reminiscent of the 1950’s housewife are back. Florals are the perfect fabric for the dress. All designers and manufacturers have done THE dress. Local labels, Mosaic and Calico both have an interesting collection of dresses that can be worn alone or over leggings. Short skirts are a great alternative to leggings. There are lots of tucking and pocket details, so be careful, if your best silhouette is straight, watch out for saggy thigh pockets. Sometimes they can be taken out, but check the construction in case the alteration is complicated. The shirt waister dress is the perfect shapes for those with a straight silhouette.
Debut…
Debut Customs St, Auckland has a good selection of dresses that can also be tailored for you.
Wendy & Tom…
Wendy & Tom Workshop in Newmarket and Ponsonby stock a large range of simple dresses in a variety of fabrics, from cotton to silk, or fabric of your choice and they will make for you.
TVC15…
TVC15 Wyndham St, central Auckland carries a collection of flattering dresses and shirt waister styles, which can be bought off the rack or made to measure. The owner, Brendan is a tailor with a great eye for detail and some of you will remember his menswear store in Vulcan Lane, Monsoon. Looking for a suit, which can be a challenge, as most manufacturers no longer make them, but TVC15 will tailor one for you, from a choice of quality fabrics.
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Tags: Calico, collection of dresses, dresses, floral dresses, Mosaic, shirt waister dress, straight silhouette, summer dresses, THE dress
Colours go through the spectrum
Miles High Dress and Singlet Dress from Robyn Mathieson Summer Collection
If you’ve steered away from pattern recently, don’t be afraid of the bright and bold designs. Not all florals have the same impact – tonal florals are subtle and clashing colours are show stoppers.
Bright florals can be toned down with denim, or a neutral or ever popular and safe black. The printed dress can be worked in different ways to make it versatile. Team with neutral-toned tailored jacket and wear to the office. Shed the jacket, glam up the earrings, put on a belt with bling and some killer heels and you’re ready to hit the town after work.
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from Jane Daniels Summer Collection
Look to the colours of a luscious fruit salad or opt for the crisp contrast of black and white, or shimmer in metallic fabrics.
Pattern is the hottest trend for summer – go wild with tribal prints or zebra stripes; say it with flowers; be spotted with dots; set sail in nautical stripes or face up to it in face prints. Whatever you choose pattern is a must for the summer months.
The sunshine brights are great for the Clear and Brights; the zebra stripes are eye catching on the Clear and Dramatics; the softer florals are pretty for the Soft and Muteds and the earthy tribal designs flatter the Rich and Muteds.
It is the season of extremes – wide floaty trousers versus skinny pants short cropped jackets or longer knee-length tunics sharp military lines or soft feminine florals.
The silhouette is fluid, but don’t do head to toe floaty. Only one piece can float and add volume otherwise you will shorten and widen yourself. And most of us aim to dress to make ourselves look taller and slimmer. So if you have a floaty top, team with narrow pants and in reverse if you wear wide trousers or slouchy harem trousers, choose a more fitting top half. Wide pants work best with high heels and narrow pants can take flat shoes.
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Tags: hottest trend for summer, shimmer in metallic fabrics, skinny pants, soft feminine florals, style and look that flatters your shape and colouring, summer clothes, summer collection, summer wardrobe, sunshine brights, wardrobe advice, wide floaty trousers, zebra stripes
- Want to hear “you look great” more often?
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- Have a wardrobe that works for you?
What shape and garment length will flatter and enhance you? Amazing how a few centimetres or changed angle can make a huge difference. Discover how you can dress to appear slimmer. Learn how to highlight your best features and conceal figure challenges – we all have them.
The answers will be revealed by scientific analysis – without a tape measure on you! This style and line analysis diagnosis has nothing to do with weight. It is about bone structure and proportion. And you can keep your clothes on!
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Colour is what we notice first about someone – wearing the right colour creates great first impressions. Do your colours support or undermine you?
A colours consultation is a once in a lifetime investment to give you colour confidence to select the right colour and realise your full potential. Discover the positive effects of wearing the right hue for your complexion. Colour is a lifetime tool enhancing your visual credibility for both career and personal benefit. Wearing your correct colour is the natural way to look younger and healthier. The wrong colours drain you making you appear tired, drawn, pale and unwell.
Colour is your secret weapon, a no cost item in your wardrobe.
Use it to save yourself time, money, energy and reduce waste. Shopping is easier, feel more confident about your purchases.
PERSONAL COLOURS CONSULTATION for WOMEN
Colours Convey Confidence. Knowing your colours gives you confidence about the way you look, how you shop, no more mistakes. When you wear the correct colours, your skin will be more radiant and your eyes will sparkle. Discover how to choose the right colours for makeup, hair, jewellery, accessories, sunglasses – yes for absolutely everything, not just your clothes. You’ll feel more beautiful as you see what the right colours DO for you. The intensity of a colour is the secret to choosing what really works for you. When you know your colours, shopping is easy. Find out how to wear black.
Your session includes hair colour options. You’ll discover your perfect metal, the colour of glasses, frames, lens, plus the best colours for precious and semi-precious stones. Colour co-ordination is simplified.
COLOUR REFRESHER SESSION
Had your colours done years ago, but need a re-fresher to learn new exciting ways to use those colours and receive an injection of colour energy into your wardrobe? Update your colour choices.
You can bring some clothes with you and Susan’s expert eye for colour can tell you if you are still on track.
“Having my colours done has given me a heightened awareness to colour. It’s amazing ‘seeing’ colours that I didn’t notice (or chose not to!) before.” - Heather, National Park
“The day after I saw you, I stepped inside a shop and knew what to buy, it was absolutely wonderful.” – Glenys, Birkenhead
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Lime green, turquoise, purples have flashed on nails for several seasons. So how do you bring a new fashion element into polish for summer.
This summer’s trend is for texture more than tone. As with clothing fashion trends it is the season of extremes – so interpret that for nails shiny metallics (pewter and gold) or matte suede in a rainbow of colour. We’ve seen matte polishes before but their popularity was limited as the matte finish looked flat and boring, but now the leading nail brands are producing matte polishes with a smoother texture and better finish.
One of the advantages of the matte polishes is they dry faster and do not need undercoat of top coats. Glitter is back, and forget those awful coarse glitters of the past that felt and looked terrible. The new glitters do glitter without the bumps. For a chic look paint your nails with matte black polish and then do a strip of silver glitter on half of each nail.
Wondering whether a new colour will work for you check out www.opi.com select “TRY ON THIS COLOR”, where you can “try” nail colours on your skintone.
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Tags: Butter nail polish, chipped nail polish, English brand of nail polish, Essie nail polish, False and acrylic nails, finger and toe nails, matte black polish, matte polishes, nail bars, nail colours on your skintone, Nail polish colours, OPI nail studio, undercoat of top coats
Always handle with care, if not used properly concealer can exaggerate what we are trying to camouflage! One of the best on the market for almost two decades has been Touche Eclat by Yves Saint Laurent. The award winning pen-brush has been the saving grace of many a woman’s dark circles.
Now Paris-based brand, By Terry, has released VIP Expert. Terry de Gunzburg created Touche Eclat for YSL and now she has her own brand. Her concealer, By Terry Touch Expert Advanced, has been hailed by Mecca Cosmetics in Auckland as a future icon, the “world’s best under-eye concealer that can turn a tired face into a glowing one in 5 seconds flat.” Not much bigger than a biro, the pen-brush is completely portable and the answer to all of our problems, neutralizing dark circles without settling in to fine lines; complying with airline regulations, and no risk of bacteria. The containers are air tight, so no need to use fingers, so no contamination. An instant uplift.
By Terry’s foundation is another cosmetic treat. Like the concealer, the brush is built in to the container for super easy application. As well as the ease of application, the foundation is a patented light-reflective liquid with illuminating prisms which bounce light off the skin to make you look younger.
Don’t be alarmed with the colour of the foundation or the concealer, they both look a bit orangey when first applied, but blend to the right colour, if you have chosen the correct colour for your skintone. Always test foundation on clean skin above your jawline, and look at it in natural light. If you can see it, it is wrong, foundation should blend with your natural skintone.
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Tags: By Terry, By Terry Touch Expert Advanced, By Terry’s foundation, Concealer makeup, dark circles, face foundation, face shapes, Mecca Cosmetics in Auckland, shape and size of your face, skin concealer, Terry de Gunzburg, Touche Eclat by Yves Saint Laurent, VIP Expert
Beware of “Convertible Clothing”
You know the garment that can be worn 10 different ways.
It justifies the large price tag because you can wear it so many different ways. Chance is you will probably wear it only one or maybe two different ways, you will find the style that suits you best and that’ll be it. It seemed such a good idea at the time to pay more than you would for one outfit, because you were supposedly getting lots of different looks. I believe it is expecting a lot from one garment and just how practical are these garments.
A truly reversible garment can be a good investment, as it is just a matter of turning it inside out to get a different colour or pattern. That will ring in the change to your wardrobe and is worth the additional price, but think carefully about convertible clothing.
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Tags: change to your wardrobe, converted into a dress, Convertible Clothing, different colour or pattern, Less can be more, lots of different looks, reversible garments, the more ways I can wear one item of clothing the better, truly reversible garment, wear it 10 different ways
First impressions and how you act, feel and look on a date are paramount to determining whether the relationship blossoms.
If you want to look great and present in a confident, assured way… I’ve partnered with Denise to assist you with our “Out on a Date” package.
Two hour consultation with me – you choose between a colours consultation, OR style analysis OR personal shopping; and a one and a half hour consultation with Denise Corlett of dating advice where you can learn tips and strategies to boost your confidence and communication. Denise, founder of Dating Advice, is recognised as New Zealand’s first and foremost dating and relationship coach. She has helped a large number of New Zealanders find, attract and keep relationships of meaning. Let her help you achieve greater results and maximise your dating and relationship potential.
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Tags: dating, Dating Advice, dating and relationship coach, Denise Corlett, first date, First impressions, maximise your dating and relationship potential, outer and inner confidence., update your wardrobe
