Chanel Jacket from 1937 issue of Marie Claire. Nice!
I just noticed that a whole bunch of people came to my www.tighsolas.ca website looking up "Chanel." I have a page called Chanel vs the Corset. This is a new thing... It seems my Tighsolas site comes up 10th, if a person enters the simple term CHANEL. In Canada at least. Cool.
I mention Chanel in the intro to the Nicholson Family saga on the homepage. This is what I wrote, 6 years ago.
"Between 1908 and 1913 Coco Chanel launched her fashion career in Paris, just as the fight for women's suffrage reached its apex. She eventually redefined women's clothing, liberating female limbs and lungs with soft fabrics and shorter hemlines, but too late to soften the image of the militant suffragette."
Since then I learned that the British Suffragettes were very fashion conscious (they had to be) and that they had an alliance with the new Selfridges departement store.
But they couldn't be avant guarde in their fashion taste, they would have been criticized for this. Only the Beau Monde, or children of the rich could afford to be cutting edge. In Downtown Abbey, first series, the youngest daughter shocks by wearing a pair of harem pants (or a harem skirt as it was called because women didn't wear pants. ;)
Anyway, back in 2005 I had read a bio of Chanel. Since then I've seen the movie, Coco Before Chanel many times. I saw it in the theatre, and missed a lot as they spoke too fast French. (My French friends also missed alot.)Audrey Tautou plays Chanel.
Now, whenever it comes on TV, on one of the Movie chanels OOPs channels.I watch it again. Sometimes just in the background as I write.
I find it comforting: the story of a woman who wins against all odds.
In the bio I read, it is claimed Chanel chose stretchy material because it was what the jockeys wore. Her first boyfriend raised race horses. But in the movie it is claimed that she discovered the material on her English Boyfriend, Boy's, English polo shirt.
Otherwise, I the two sources jive. Chanel started her career fashioning hats for her boyfriend's rich firends, then set up a hat shop, then a dress shop. In Paris. She went to the Cote during the War. Lately, it has been suggested, she was something of a war criminal, or spy for the German's in WWII. Alas, no one is perfect.
Otherwise, I the two sources jive. Chanel started her career fashioning hats for her boyfriend's rich firends, then set up a hat shop, then a dress shop. In Paris. She went to the Cote during the War. Lately, it has been suggested, she was something of a war criminal, or spy for the German's in WWII. Alas, no one is perfect.
I couldn't find a way to put Chanel in my story, Threshold Girl, www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf.
Threshold Girl tells the story of a college student in Montreal in 1911.
But I am going to have Edith meet up with Elizabeth Arden in 1909, maybe on a train.
Elizabeth Arden was the makeup mogul and one time Richest Woman in the World. Born in Ontario, as it happens. Went to New York in 1909 to live with her brother. She had nice skin, which rich women admired.. So it goes.
Elizabeth Arden was the makeup mogul and one time Richest Woman in the World. Born in Ontario, as it happens. Went to New York in 1909 to live with her brother. She had nice skin, which rich women admired.. So it goes.
And in 1912, the McCoy's, friends of Marion's go to Europe and bring her back a Parisienne Blouse. I think I might have one mention a little dress shop they went into.. on rue de Cambon, I think it is.
If you want to see some Titanic Fashion, go to www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf, for my free ebook featuring fashion from 1911/12.
