Classic Chic: Music, Fashion, and Modernism

6. Coco Chanel

6 COCO CHANEL Chanel is the woman with the most sense in Europe. pablo picasso “Fashion must come up from the streets.” So declared Coco Chanel, articulating a philosophy that would revolutionize style and change women’s dress forever. In an age when ornate embellishment and rigorous body control still set couture clothing apart from lesser modes of dress, Chanel dared to propose a radical new look based on simplicity and body-conscious naturalism . Her functional designs, inspired by the humble sweaters, trousers, and other workaday garments of ordinary French men and women, were a powerful antidote to the widely held notion that couture was an art and the couturier an artistic genius. Instead, Chanel emphasized the craft of fashion , using precise tailoring and rare fabrics to translate everyday looks into elegant—if expensive—designs. Her competitor Paul Poiret groused that this amounted to nothing more than “deluxe poverty,” but Chanel’s popularizing aesthetic resonated with upper-class Parisian women in search of a fresh look after the war. Meshing the classical French values of restraint and elegance with a modern ideal of freedom and fun, her approach was precisely in tune with the idea of a liberated world where even women in society’s loftiest echelons let loose and “took the métro, dined at restaurants , drank cocktails, played games, and showed their legs.”1 Charismatic as well as creative, Chanel found herself by the 1920s in the exceptional position of both circulating in high society and dressing its leaders. As she traveled in this beau monde and encountered the most celebrated painters, writers, and musicians of the day, she discovered that many of them shared her belief that the “streets” would be the true source 153 for new modes of expression. Her involvements with artists were often complex and always multifaceted; she was patron to many, artistic partner to some, and the close intimate of a few. Tightly allied with the Ballets Russes, she built connections with Cocteau, Stravinsky, and Les Six, and played a vital role in forging and advancing an ideal of modernism based in simplicity and everyday elegance. From the influence of her ideas to the impact of her personal relationships, Chanel was an important advocate for the modern musical style that emerged in the 1920s, a force in defining the new sound Cocteau described as “music on which one walks.”2 “By a kind of miracle,” he proclaimed, “she has worked in fashion according to rules that would seem to have value only for painters, musicians, and poets.”3 The foundations of Chanel’s aesthetic were laid early and shaped by dire circumstances.4 Born to peasant parents in the Loire town of Saumur in 1883,she was just twelve years old when her mother died;abandoned by her father, she passed her youth as a ward of the Catholic orphanage in the remote village of Aubazine. Faced with the choice of either joining the novitiate or leaving the convent altogether when she reached the age of eighteen, she opted to move to the larger and livelier town of Moulins, where she attended boarding school,learned to sew,and worked as a lingerie salesgirl and tailor’s assistant.Fashion was a secondary interest,however:at the time, Chanel’s dream was to become a music-hall star, and in 1905 she got her chance, making her debut at the town’s outdoor music pavilion, La Rotonde.5 Working there as a poseuse—one of a dozen unpaid singers who filled in for the main star when she took a break—Chanel quickly developed a signature repertory and a regular following.Two songs in particular literally made her name: “Ko Ko Ri Ko,” a tune first made popular by the renowned star Polaire in 1897; and “Qui qu’à vu Coco dans le Trocadero,” a “canine complaint”recounting the adventures of a lost dog,which was composed by Elise Faure in 1889.6 Not a year had passed when, encouraged by her success and armed with a new nickname, “Coco” set her sights on conquering music-hall stages in the more cosmopolitan town of Vichy. One of the first European resorts, Vichy was a magnet for upscale visitors from England and the Continent. Known for its therapeutic thermal springs even in the first century a.d., the town’s cachet skyrocketed in 1860 when Napoleon III came to take a cure, and after his stay the transformation from medical retreat to tourist resort commenced...