Coco Chanel: Pearls, Perfume, and the Little Black Dress

Coco Chanel:  Pearls, Perfume, and the Little Black Dress by Susan Goldman Rubin          Hardback Book:  133 pages             

So full of great quotes from Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, like: “Dressing Women is not a Man’s job…Fashion has become a joke (male) Designers have forgotten there are women inside the dresses.”  That was in 1947 when Christina Dior was trying to tuck women back in to those tight unforgiving throwbacks to the gay nineties.  Coco Chanel came up during the time of staves and corsets, with women getting the breath and actually sometimes the life squeezed out of them in order to appear flawless in clothes that held them hostage.   Growing up in the Catholic orphanage, Gabrielle as she was addressed then, wore white blouses and black skirts her daily uniform from childhood through her teen years.  Her outfit was a reflection of the black and white habits worn by the nuns who ran the orphanage and taught there.   While Gabrielle expressed there was no love or affection displayed by the nuns who raised her still there was an element of respect and vernation for the austere life they led and the minimalistic furnishings and meager possessions.   Throughout Coco’s life her clothing and her designs for the House of Chanel ranged in mostly the colors of black or white as she often said, “Women think of every color except the absence of colors.    I have said that black has everything.   White, too.  They have an absolute beauty.”   While other fashionistas of her day considered black a color for only mourning outfits and white for the purity of wedding gowns, Coco brought them to everyday situations and gave them elegance as evening wear.   Always ahead of her times and a trend setter, Coco Chanel hated the binding clothing designed for women by men who did not have to wear such horrid monstrosities to keep an hour glass shape to the feminine body.  Coco rebelled and began wearing men’s sweaters and pants that she jazzed up to make more femine with ribbons, lace, adding a camellia to keep them feminine but men’s clothes made of jersey were easier to wear and of course one could not put girdles, or corsets or any such contraption on underneath because those items would show clearly though the fabric and so, ladies, we can all thank Coco Chanel for getting us out of those so uncomfortable creations and into relaxed, chic and now classic sophisticated designs.    And my dears, she is the inventor of the little black dress we are all so fond of even today.   And with a strand of pearl – tres’ magnifque’!    She brought the Gypsy peasant look to the fashion world still copied to this day.   Diana Vreeland, once editor of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, said, “Everyone thinks of suits when they think of Chanel…If you wuld have seen my clothes from Chanel in the thirties – the degage’ [free and easy] gypsy skirts, the divine brocades, the little boleros, the roses in the hair…And the ribbons were so pretty.”  A gown Vreeland owned from Coco’s romantic period she (Vreeland) described as “the most beautiful dress I’ve ever owned.”   Chanel also came up with the idea to sew small gold chains with the hems of her jackets and skirts to make them lay just right.   So inventive!    Coco had a habit of redesigning clothing on the spot for the women she was with.   If she thought the desing horrible, she whipped out her scissors and pins and made a new creation of the garment causing more stirs from admirers wanting one for themselves.    The woman was a genious as a tailor/ seamstress.   She even redesigned the prom dress of the daughter of a friend while the young girl stood there in front of her.   Meaning only to model the dress before leaving for the prom, Coco shouted how hideous it looked, immediately pulled out here scissors redid this and that and sent the young girl off to regales of  lavish compliments and other girls questioning where she got such a wonderful dress?   More business for the House of Chanel.    Another carryover from her orphanage days was the joining of the two C’s in the Chanel logo.    As a student during her orphanage years, Gabrielle was taken with the geodesic designs in the stained glass mosaics she saw in the church and based the joining of the two Cs as her logo on the kaleidoscope effect while joining her initial with that of the man she loved most in the world,  Capt. Arthur Edward “Boy” Capel.   She loved the thought of their names together Capel and Chanel and came up with the entwined Cs as a tribute to the love of her life who died in a car wreck.   Though as an aristocrat he would have never married her, they shared a torrid love affair even after he married a woman of the aristocracy breaking Chanel’s heart but they never let go of one another till death did them part.   An advernturess life this lady lived from world fame to local shame (she had an affair during WWII with a man who served Hitler’s regime though his mother was English and it is said that Coco worked for the French Underground answering directly to her friend, Winston Churchill.   Mademoiselle suffered no repercussions during the War though her esteem went down with many of her countrymen over her liason.    Such a life.   Such a larger than life character.   Mademoiselle is still remembered for her design expertise and to this day a Chanel creation is a coveted treasure.   Good book.