Often copied, never equalled, Coco Channel set the standard for elegant dressing. Deirdre McQuillan takes a look at a new book chronicling the designer's life and work
Colette called her the little black bull; Picasso described her as "the most sensible woman in the world" while Cocteau declared that she had "reigned over fashion. Because there is nothing in her era she has missed". Coco Chanel (l883-l971), the great iconic fashion designer of the 20th century, is the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (opens May 5th) in which period examples of her work, ideas and techniques will be counterbalanced with those of Karl Lagerfeld who, from l983, recreated and revitalised the identity of the house of Chanel.
The woman who taught generations how to dress, and who recognised and embodied so acutely the spirit of the age, is commemorated also this month in a revised and lavishly illustrated biography by Edmonde Charles-Roux, The World of Coco Chanel: Friends Fashion Fame. The book traces her origins - from her birth to impoverished illiterate street traders in Saumur and upbringing in an orphanage - to her liaisons with rich, aristocratic suitors and her steady development as a couturière, femme d'enterprise and subsequent rise to world fame.
I remember once being in Saumur, where the illustrious Cadre Noir, the French equitation school, is based and asking in a chic boutique why there was no reference anywhere to the city's famous daughter. "Madame," the proprietor replied, "here in Saumur, they are more interested in chavaux than in Chanel". In fact, Chanel was an outstanding horsewoman who adapted tailoring from the taut precision and severity of cavalry dress, uniforms originally designed to inspire admiration and indeed, enlistment. She joined the boys; had men's jodhpurs copied to suit her shape, and made her name skilfully incorporating elements of masculine dress into women's wear.
Her lean figure, upright bearing and rigorous discipline owed as much to her love of athleticism and sporting activities as to her practical sense of comfort and style. Whatever she wore, she dressed with flair and innovation; there is a famous picture of her with Vera Bate, dressed in English tweeds, at the time of her affair with the Duke of Westminster. Another wonderful image portrays her in Saint Moritz, decked out for the newly-fashionable winter sports with Etienne de Beaumont, wearing what look like Doc Martens.
Even today, more than 30 years after her death, her name is indelibly associated with the famous Chanel No 5 perfume (five was her lucky number), with her signature two- and three-piece suits, and with the little black dress. Her simplicity and contempt for unnecessary detail made the Belle Époque fashions of the time, with their fussiness and furbelows, their corsets and constraints, seem outdated. Her first lover, Etienne Balsan, a sportsman and horse breeder, helped her set up in business as a milliner in fashionable Deauville and her ability, right through life, to frame her face with flattering headwear of all kinds was notable.
She once told Eleanor Lambert that the armhole was the key to a successful fit. "I watched take the whole sleeve off a jacket and put it back on until she was sure it was part of the body. That's what made it move. It changed women - changed what they demanded of clothes." Whether opened, closed or casually tossed over the shoulder, her jackets, in fabrics such as jersey, velvet, silk or tweed, always looked soft and easy, and as good today as they were more than 80 years ago. Her eveningwear was always romantic, her accessories remarkable.
Chanel's lack of formal education was more than compensated for by her passion for knowledge and refinement, acquired from her rich and wealthy suitors, and later, artists and writers. So much of what is now taken for granted was innovative, indeed revolutionary, at the time; the wearing of trousers for women, bathing suits, suntans, little black dresses, costume jewellery, short hair, and a way of dressing that in its boyishness was coquettish, but also reflective of the emergence of the modern woman.
Her circle of friends reads like a roll call of the avant-garde literary and artistic circles of the day; work for theatre and film was another facet of her stellar life. She designed costumes for Cocteau's production of Antigone and for Oedipus Rex, for Stravinsky's ballet, Le Train Bleu and in Hollywood set the scene for the modern cult of celebrity by agreeing to costume the queens of Hollywood and "reform their taste" for €1 million, a huge sum in the 1930s. She designed costumes for Jean Renoir's controversial Le Regle du Jeu and introduced him to the young Italian aristocrat Luchino Visconti, setting in train another distinguished career.
As an employer, she was merciless, "turning a deaf ear even to the most legitimate demands" and firing, in one mass dismissal, 300 employees who refused to budge. Eventually she had to capitulate to their demands. Her peak years were in the late 1930s, when, faced with the threat of an upcoming rival, Elsa Schiaparelli, she rose to the challenge by making herself more visible and reigning over "a veritable court of photographers". She introduced her seductive gypsy style, which emphasised the waist, with floral decorations and sequins proliferating over hems, bodices and boleros (another contemporary echo here) before the second World War snuffed out that romantic impulse.
When war was declared, Chanel closed down her house and shared her life with a German officer, during and after the Occupation; later she went into exile in Switzerland. With the arrival of Dior and his sensational New Look in 1947, and the domination of men such as Balenciaga, Piguet and Fath in post-war fashion, Chanel drifted into obscurity, becoming an almost-forgotten name. Then, in l954, she chose her moment to make her comeback. Her collection was slammed by both the French and British press. A lesser mortal would have conceded defeat. Not Chanel. Victory was to come; her second collection was a bestseller in the US, and from then until her death, nine years later, she lived only for her work, "a solitary figure, respected, proud and always tyrannical", according to Charles Roux. When she died in 1971, she left a fashion empire earning $160 million a year.
Her legacy endures; the authority of her work remains relevant thanks to Lagerfeld's masterful and often irreverent reinterpretations. That famous quilted handbag with its gold chains, designed to free the arms, first launched in 1957, has just been brought back for winter 2005. "I don't like people talking about the Chanel fashion," she once said. "Chanel, above all else, is a style. Fashion goes out of fashion. Style never."