Before Chanel
This period of fashion for women was characterized by huge mutton sleeves that ballooned above the elbow and tiny, cinched waistlines accentuated by sashes or ribbons. Corsets created the look, but they confined the wearers. The materials were wool or serge and tailored. The French named it La Belle Epoc because the clothing was beautiful.
Chanel's Influence
Coco created designs that abandoned the emphasis on waist definition. She used neutral colors like cream, beige, sand and navy. Her jersey fabrics were soft and fluid. Chanel used simple shapes, designed for comfort and simplicity of wearing. Later in her career, she introduced the bell bottom, turtleneck sweaters and pea jackets; these styles found great success in the United States.
The Little Black Dress
In 1926 Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel published a picture of a short, simple black dress in American Vogue. It was calf-length, straight, and decorated only by a few diagonal lines. Vogue called it “Chanel’s Ford.” Like the Model T, the little black dress was simple and accessible for women of all social classes. Vogue also said that the LBD would become “a sort of uniform for all women of taste.”
Perhaps even more far-reaching, Coco is sometimes credited with popularizing short hair for women and shorter skirts. Here she is pictured in her own little black dress.
Many thanks to Coco for ushering in comfortable clothes for women. Not only have women become free of corsets but they had found freedom in movement, enabling women to work and take care of themselves which eventually led to their own financial independence. She was a self-made woman, very pragmatic in her approach to life, abandoned as a youth and although she fell in love, she considered marriage and coupledom boring and worse yet, resented dependency and so she never attached herself to a man, but rather focused her efforts on her work life.
In this movie, the theme of great sacrifice that propels success echoed a similar theme underlying another recent film The Adjustment Bureau. Does great success require great sacrifice? Can an individual seek achievement without hunger, challenges, competition or fear motivating her? I'd like to think not, but it's an interesting notion to reflect on. In any case, the movie about Coco Chanel while far from being a biopic certainly did inspire me as I witnessed her struggles and how that contributed to shaping her values. She was indeed a feminist before there were feminists.
Punchlines
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Or perhaps it's a stye.
