(illustration credit fm1.1) Copyright © 2014 by Rhonda K Garelick All rights reserved Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garelick, Rhonda K Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the pulse of history/ Rhonda K Garelick pages cm Includes bibliographical references ISBN 978-1-4000-6952-1 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-679-60426-6 (ebook) Chanel, Coco, 1883–1971 Fashion designers—France—Biography Fashion design—History—20th century I Title TT505.C45G37 2014 746.9’2092—dc23 [B] 2014006844 www.atrandom.com Jacket design: David G Stevenson Title typography: Gabriele Wilson Jacket photograph: Willy Rizzo/Paris Match via Getty Images v3.1 To know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them —VIRGINIA WOOLF, MRS DALLOWAY CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph Introduction CHAPTER 1 Early Life CHAPTER 2 A New World CHAPTER 3 Designing Together: Coco Chanel and Arthur Edward “Boy” Capel CHAPTER 4 Grand Duke Dmitri CHAPTER 5 My Heart Is in My Pocket: Coco and Pierre Reverdy CHAPTER 6 Women Friends, Mimetic Contagion, and the Parisian Avant-Garde CHAPTER 7 Antigone in Vogue: Chanel Costumes the Modernist Stage CHAPTER 8 Bendor: The Richest Man in Europe CHAPTER 9 The Patriotism of Luxury: Chanel and Paul Iribe CHAPTER 10 The Pulse of History: Chanel, Fascism, and the Interwar Years CHAPTER 11 Love, War, and Espionage CHAPTER 12 Showing Them: Chanel Returns Afterword Illustration Insert Dedication Acknowledgments Bibliography Notes Illustration Credits Other Books by This Author About the Author INTRODUCTION I dressed the universe —COCO CHANEL, 1947 What is Chanel? What every woman is wearing without knowing it —L’EXPRESS MAGAZINE, 1956 Corporate headquarters for the House of Chanel occupies an anonymous building on a cul-de-sac in Paris’s fashionable first arrondissement Stepping inside the lobby, one enters a high modernist temple—a hushed, windowless cavern of gleaming cream-colored marble, smoked glass doors, and Eames chairs for waiting guests Patience is required here, since even after being announced by security guards, all visitors are personally ushered upstairs by a Chanel employee who must penetrate an elaborate series of high-security checkpoints with an electronic badge For convenience, badges are worn on elastic strings around the neck, often hidden beneath the long ropes of Chanel pearls worn by so many of the (mostly female) employees here, along with chain-link belts, bouclé suits, jersey separates, quilted purses, beige-and-black shoes, and hundreds of other iconic objects, which, together with the wafting clouds of Chanel No 5, conjure the goddess who haunts this temple still She may have passed away more than forty years ago at the age of eighty-seven, but within these marble walls, the founder of the empire is ever-young, ever-present, and referred to simply as “Mademoiselle.” Ask nearly any woman in the developed world if she is familiar with “Chanel” and you get an instant reaction—a little “whoosh” of breath, a deep awareness Most men know who she is, too, or rather what it is, since part of what is being recognized is an identity that transcends fashion and even the person herself For one hundred years and counting, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel has exerted global influence as a designer, a businesswoman, a corporate brand, and, finally, as a symbol of feminine privilege and style Although Chanel was born in rural poverty and raised in an orphanage with little formal education, by the time she was thirty her name was a household word in France At the age of thirty, she expanded her business into the international market; thanks in part to the wild success of her perfume, Chanel No 5 (the first synthetically created fragrance in history), she became a multimillionaire before the age of forty By 1930, when Chanel was forty-seven, she employed 2,400 people and was worth at least $15 million—close to $1 billion in today’s currency To this day, every three seconds a bottle of Chanel No is sold; it is the most successful perfume in history The Chanel corporation, founded in 1910, is the highest-earning privately owned luxury goods manufacturer in the world Chanel’s influence extends beyond the long life of her company; it has been woven deeply into global consciousness Her name remains as recognizable today as it was a century ago, known not only to the millions of customers who buy Chanel merchandise at all price points (from perfume to couture), but also to those who wish they could, and to the millions more who buy the infinitely available copies Every day, on nearly any urban street corner in the world, a constant défilé of Chanel products (genuine and imitation) streams by—the famous initial motif, those interlocking Cs, emblazoned on handbags and scarves, dangling from necklaces and earrings Not all of the women sporting these accessories necessarily know that they are wearing someone’s initials or that “Chanel” was once a real person, so completely has Chanel the woman blended into Chanel the brand But they all have faith in the talismanic power of those Cs, in their ability to conjure a little magic, to cast an aura of chic and privilege over their wearer I know this because I have been stopping CC-wearing strangers for years to ask them what the letters mean to them Regardless of social class or whether the “Chanels” are real, the answers rarely vary When asked why she had chosen her oversize, rhinestone double-C earrings, one inner-city teenager (who was surprised to learn that “Chanel” was the name of a real woman) responded: “I don’t know; it’s just classy I like the brand.” When asked about her black Chanel sunglasses, an affluent college student first assured me they were “real,” and then said, “It just makes me feel better to have them on.” A Chanel executive offered little more in the way of explanation, stating simply that the double-C logo was “un vrai sésame de luxe”—a French expression roughly translatable as “a truly magical passport [more literally, an ‘open sesame’] to luxury.” Chanel would not have minded this odd admixture of fame and anonymity On the contrary, she would have loved it, for she devoted her life to transcending the personal, to transforming herself (and her name) into an icon of feminine desirability and luxury She would probably be equally pleased to learn that “Chanel” has gained popularity in the twenty-first century as a first name for baby girls in the United States (A few young women now even bear the hyphenated first name “Coco-Chanel.”) Through her unique blend of overt and anonymous influence Chanel forged the look of modern womanhood as we know it Even now, every day, millions of women awake and costume themselves as some version of Coco Chanel, choosing from a vast array of simple and reproducible items that created the streamlined look designed and worn first by Chanel, then by her vast army of customers: skirt suits in neutral colors, trousers, cardigan sweaters, jersey knits, T-shirts, flat shoes, the little black dress, and about a hundred other items we consider wardrobe staples Chanel was among the very first to wear her hair short, to wear eyeglasses without shame, even to sport a suntan—formerly scorned as a sign of peasant labor (Later, when she learned about skin-damaging UV rays, she counseled caution in the sun and developed a lotion with sunscreen.) Look around you—on the street, in the subway, at the office—at women of all ages and social classes and you will see a kind of retinal afterimage of Coco Chanel So deeply has the Chanel aesthetic been impressed upon us that we no longer see it—like the air we breathe, it is everywhere but invisible Even during her lifetime and at the height of her fame, Chanel’s style operated more by stealth than by fanfare How can we explain the power and longevity of this one individual’s vision? Certain lives are at once so exceptional and so in step with their historical moment that they illuminate cultural forces far beyond the ... itself through the casually regal pose of the body, the distinctively bobbed hair, and, of course, everything she’s wearing: the strands of pearls, the gathered bow of the blouse, the softly draped... Copyright © 2014 by Rhonda K Garelick All rights reserved Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC... RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garelick, Rhonda K Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the pulse of history/ Rhonda K