New Fashion and Women with Coco Chanel

Jacob Reeleder

Pre-Degree III

17 April 2014

New Fashion and Women with Coco Chanel

        Coco Chanel announces, “Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury” (Richards 17). Truly, women’s fashion became comfortable with her innovation. Probably not such a person who has not heard about Coco Chanel. She was a famous fashion designer, perfumer and trendsetter. She is truly an amazing woman, who became successful with the help of her character, willpower and mind. Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born in 1883 in small city Saumur, France. Her family was very poor. When she was 18 years Gabrielle started to work as clothes seller and in her free time she sang in a cabaret. Due to the fact that she loved to sing a song “Ko Ko Ri Ko”, she later became known as Coco. Her performances have caught the fancy of a French officer and businessman, who invited her to go to Paris. Coco, of course, agreed. When Coco Chanel turned 27 years old, he presented to her a shop. Young Coco decided to sell hats. Her hats have become popular and in 29 years old she opened her own Fashion House. From this moment, a new round of success began in the biographies of Coco Chanel. Until old age, she was industrious, gambling and full of ideas. Sometimes her ideas were in a dream (though, like many other geniuses). Coco Chanel died at 88 years in a posh hotel room, across the street from her Fashion House

 (Sischy). She worked in fashion industry 70 years and innovated a lot of new things in World Fashion.  Mainly, she affected women’s fashion, because she was one of the women, who do not like women’s position in the World. Nevertheless, her influence was not solely positive, there were some negative aspects. On the one hand, she taught women how to dress simple and stylish without frills, she had created a new perfume, which was very different from others and bag, which was easy to use, on the other hand, her innovations were a step toward feminism and harmful to health, also, she was dishonest.

        To understand the "mystery" Coco enough to remember the times in which matured Coco. The beginning of XX century in France was due to the expectation of great change. French worldview accustomed separation by gender. World ruled by men. They started the war, moved the science, technology and developed society. Woman was an object of desire, who can only seduce, love and have children. Accordingly, the fashion of those times was a reflection of prevailing ideologies. Women were flowers of life, men hypocritically claimed and prescribed them to wear a tight corset, long dresses, fluffy hair and binding lady's hat. Someone who did not fit the male’s notions of fashion, there was no place in high society (Talse 24-28). Ambitious Coco was decent seamstress and experienced woman who managed to understand how to control men. Passion for men, which was a lot in the life of Coco, never allowed to forget about her difficult childhood. Coco used all the men in her life to change women's fashion, women and their place in the world.

It is not secret that Coco was icon of style. Women of those times tried to wear like Coco. Her Fashion House was very famous and every fashionable woman had clothes from there. Her understanding of style was very strict. She loved black and white clothing, preferred clean lines and simplicity. Little black dress is proof of that. It is one of the varieties of cocktail or evening black dress, knee-length, which can be worn not only during the day to work in the office, but also at the gala reception, adding dress accessories. The little black dress was invented in 1926 by Coco Chanel in the memory of her deceased beloved. Until that moment, the black color associated with mourning and was not successful, but with the arrival of the little black dress has become very popular. This dress covered the knees, because Coco thought that knees the ugliest part of the female body. It also characterized a simple semicircular neck, long narrow sleeves and no frills, such as fringe, buttons, and ruffles. Any woman could afford a little black dress, even with low income, because if she had one this dress, she could  create many combinations and each time look different. The Modern version of the dress is quite different from the classic. There are chance of a shorter hem, different types of collars, the use of lace, frills and other decorative elements. The Little Black Dress is present in the collections of most designers. One of the most famous little black dresses is considered to be a simple dress by Hubert de Givenchy, worn by the heroine Audrey Hepburn in the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (Bjork). Women in all over the world still to wear Chanel clothes and this fashion house still to be one from the most successful.  Nowadays, almost every woman has a little black dress (often more than one) in her wardrobe.

Namely, Coco Chanel created a new perfume. Its distinctive feature was an attempt to recreate the scent of a woman, rather than copying the smells of flowers, how it was before. This perfume has become legendary and most popular smell for women in all over the World. According to legend, Coco Chanel asked Mr. Beaux create "artificial fragrance that smells of women", stressing that under the "artificial" flavor it has in mind a new, man-made flavor. Perfumer has produced 10 flavors. Coco chose five. So there was a name of a masterpiece. In addition, the "five" was favorite number of Coco Chanel. Gabrielle, an obsession with austerity and simplicity, offered a simple bottle in the shape of a parallelepiped, which allows you to admire a golden liquid. She (unlike their predecessors) realized that you need to focus on the value of the contents, not the container (Coco Avant Chanel). After the release of this fragrance, many other perfumes became produced by the same technology.

        Diamonds are considered as a girl's best friend, but Coco Chanel proved that bijouterie may look no worse than diamonds. It helped women to save money. They stopped to waste money on expensive jewelry, and just buying quality bijouterie. In the fashion of the 1930s, the role of accessories was unusually large. For many women, new hat and handbag were the only affordable way to follow the fashion. Extravagant accessories complemented suits and dresses. Hats, fur boas from arctic fox or black fox, bows at the neck, gloves with large bells, bags, envelopes, which were worn under the arm were especially popular. Financial difficulties led to the fact that cheap bijouterie spread in fashion, almost nobody bought real jewels. Chanel offered the idea of ​​wearing