Obviously, Coco Chanel, one of the greatest designers of the twentieth century, was a creative woman. Less obvious, that in fact, was neither a good designer or a good seamstress. Skills that most would consider essential for the profession of the designer, even more important than creativity, but now often replaced by more "common" extravagance.
It seems that the most appropriate way to remember the great Coco Chanel forty years after death (He was born in Saumur August 19, 1883 and died in Paris on January 10, 1971), the woman who became the fashion, femininity, elegance and more, thanks to its "simple" qualities as a revolutionary, starting a condition of extreme poverty (their parents were hawkers), spending the first years of life in an orphanage and taking its inspiration from monastic clothes. Like all true revolutionaries, the talents of Gabrielle's departure - his real name - was the stubbornness and self-confidence. It is enough. Like all revolutionaries, in short, Coco was an excellent strategist, but it is doubtful that he could do war. So Sofia Gnoli on Coco A century of Italian fashion, 1900-2000 : "It was a seamstress, but a creative fashion," the first thing I did not design, "he repeated," I've never designed a dress. I use my pencil just to dye your eyes and write letters. Sculpt the model, rather than draw it. I take the fabric and cut. Then he stuck with pins on a mannequin, and if he goes, someone the stitching. If the not be ripped and then the crop. If still does not go throw it away and start over ... In all honesty I do not even sew "" .
Coco's life before anything else is unknown. She herself, has become known throughout the world, tried to conceal the brackets inventing the most uncomfortable - almost like a "Baron Munchausen" - new and different family origins. However, his biographers tell better informed, they were just nuns, from which Coco was up to 17 years to obtain their first jobs to the young Frenchman. A shop of fabrics and outfits in Moulins. In the same town Gabrielle try a career as a singer (not a great career in truth ...), playing most of the time in the popular tune Here qu 'a vu Coco dans le Trocadero? The result? Almost nothing apart from the fact that the nickname "Coco" will remain throughout the life .
We know the France of the early twentieth century. France bohemian artists, but also by the elegant belle époque , France where he gives the last appointment (or maybe the next to last) generation of romantic old Europe. In an environment like this just do not miss too many opportunities to be able to show the whole world (the world known then) their artistic talents. And in this the-century France, where sexual attraction, feelings and interests are intertwined inexplicably, many stories begin as real fairytale to end in an unusual and original, often with a terrible loss. In 1905 the twenty Coco Etienne Balsan know the officer who would become her first lover besides the first "funder" and will live with him in the castle of Royallieu here and know the "beautiful world", rich people, artists, and maintained maintained, getting to grips with what will be, over the years, one of its "catchment areas" beloved. If we were groped a comparison is useful for better understanding, we could easily pull this world made up of rich men and irregular, that more than half a century later will meet around Andy Warhol in his "Factory" stars-and-stripes. It is known that certain circles frequented by Americans of the sixties new rebels, beats like Kerouac, singers, songwriters as Bob Dylan and the actors do not always guarantee success, will continue with the media more and more daring, the French groups of the early twentieth century. Not for nothing our Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) can be considered an icon sessantottino ante-litteram with Picasso and Apollinaire, who attended the Livorno in his stays in the bank the Seine.
Chanel's career begins when the young woman goes to live with Balsan. The woman begins to realize the famous hats, very different from - flashy - that the twentieth century had inherited from the previous century. A mix of scandal and curiosity. The new product will attract the attention of customers at once-beautiful world of upper-class. During this period, however, Gabrielle know the love of his life, Arthur "Boy" Capel, industrial Newcastle died young age, and thanks to him will open the Paris boutique on Rue Cambon. Balsan Coco emancipate so it had granted to the young lover to transform their garçonnière in a makeshift studio. For the caps will be added soon other clothing .
will the war years, however, to transform the life of French designer. In the opening chapter of the book that the French Academy has devoted to Chanel Paul Morand ( The allure de Chanel, 1976), Maurizio Ferrara writes that "the war was to bring Coco luck: in 1914, at the time of general mobilization, on the advice of Capel, Coco remained at Deauville, the most fashionable resort in Normandy, and decided to create clothes for rich clients fled the coast, away from the clamor of war. In 1915, Coco went to Biarritz, another famous seaside resort in the Bay of Biscay, and here he opened a store, confiding it to his sister Antoinette: in a short time, the empire was born Chanel, Coco, and in 1916, returned in Paris, ran a company that already had three hundred workers. " Chanel jersey also works (and for that, and for other inventions such as the fashion for short hair and the perfume "Chanel No. 5", over time, will be known) and it's great because it manages to divide between the world of rich men (when it was introduced by the lovers), that of "ordinary" workers or petty bourgeois whose way of life "comfortable, less bombastic, infect much of the old continent, and finally, the timeless world of French artists. Since 1917, thanks to pianist Godebska Misia, in fact, the designer will begin to attend the artistic circles in Paris: Picasso, Cocteau and Max Jacob .
will be a crescendo. The twenties - there is still half a century to the death - are years targati Chanel. The years of the great lovers (within the European aristocracy, or one of the artists: Stravinsky, the poet Paul Reverdy, true love and then, in the thirties Paul Iribe), and the years of the launch of the famous perfume "Chanel No. ° 5, the first artificial fragrance, capable of revolutionizing the entire "industry" and "advertised" farther from Marilyn Monroe, in short are the years of the myth of "Chanel" of his artistic collaborations (and later with her jewels) and especially a new conception of the woman who is spreading throughout the West. First concrete and dynamic, a woman who begins a ispirarsi alla moda maschile. Gli anni Trenta, poi, sono quelli degli storici tailleur e dello stile a un tempo elegante e austero. Via dunque quelle “impalcature” sotto i vestiti che avevano limitato movimento e libertà fino a quel momento, e spazio aperto ai pantaloni ma anche alle più comode gonne sopra il ginocchio. E spazio aperto alla moda “povera” o “finta-povera”, quella da “strada” e da lavoro. È anche questa un’anticipazione di quanto avverrà poco anni dopo, nei più popolari anni Sessanta. A proposito di libertà. La parentesi del “Fronte popolare” – l’alleanza di sinistra in seno alla politica francese – non è in favor of Coco Chanel. The life of the greatest stylist of the twentieth century, therefore, is not all downhill ... In the second half of the thirties, the workers occupying the factories and the outbreak of World War II, perhaps in revenge, the designer (that's left is not), decides to close his couture house .
During the war, Coco is bound to an officer of the German counter-intelligence and then to one of the leaders of the SS, and undertakes frequent collaborators environments (failing) to reach Churchill to bring an honorable peace with Germany (an event known as "Modellhut operation"). In short it is a character in the whole "counter" ... Stopped for a few hours in the liberation of Paris, decided to escape to Switzerland in '53 and can only return to Paris to resume his fashion house. Meanwhile, the "mark" Chanel has been enriched by the unique accessories including jewelry: real ones and the simple imitation. The myth, despite the war and the new competition is therefore not dead. And never will be . What can I say? Coco Chanel was neither more nor less, the creator of the female model of the twentieth century. The woman who take a proactive role in contemporary society, that left the field none of its weapons of seduction, but bought in the ability to "irony" and dynamism. Lately, his figure was recalled to the movies and on TV and could not be otherwise. On the big screen, Audrey Tautou (who is also starring in advertisements for Chanel), was the interpreter of Coco avant Chanel , French film of 2009. In TV, however, the face of designer belonged to Barbara Bobulova, in 2008. But the biggest commercial for Chanel style remains, and will probably forever, Audrey Hepburn, who plays Holly in the film by Blake Edwards Breakfast at Tiffany . Elegance and simplicity even into the sixties in a film that, in terms of fashion, is also a amarcord twenties. A as we were, but also how we will be for many years yet ...
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