Hill Station Blues: First Modernist    
 First Modernist5 comments
18 Sep 2007 @ 14:14, by Nigella Wraye



Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883-1971) is a fashion icon unlike any other. She invented modern clothing for women: at the height of the Belle Époque, she stripped women of their corsets and feathers, bobbed their hair, put them in bathing suits, and sent them out to get tanned in the sun. She introduced slacks, costume jewelery, and the exquisitely comfortable suit. She made the first couture perfume-No. 5-which remains the most popular scent ever created.

Anything written about this unassuming personage is an understatement of the facts and her mould breaking achievements for the feminine physique which became never ending after both world wars. Most critical of all was the fact that she was able to create without attention to herself, but just as a designer. In those days the clothes and styles were more important than the label. Eyecatching in her own right in social circles, but quietly working earthbreaking approaches to couture and everyday wear and living entirely of her own inspiration, in fact by having to stitch her own clothes sufficient to suite the practice of the time but also more importantly to suite her own active outdoor pursuits too. So many firsts for one person from an orphanage, and so rarely championed.

Soon in 2008 is a new film will be released on her life.

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5 comments

18 Sep 2007 @ 14:51 by nraye : Pick?

 

18 Sep 2007 @ 14:52 by nraye : Whadda about that?
Hey!

The main author of the CC biography is the sister of an acquaintence, her brother of mine. He is the person from I learnt the correct notion of Apocalypse - as in the Bible and the famous four horsemen. It is never meant as an impending catastrophy for a group, but only for the individual while on the path of his/her own development. It represents the coming together of the chief faculties of the person sufficient to break old moulds of habit and thought and to bring higher realisations in its wake. A potentially difficult experience to negotiate in the approach but easier in the aftermath.

It is almost as though Chanel wrought an crises of situation for womanhood, a crysalis and metamorphosis into a new notion of being for women the world over. It is just incredible.  

28 Sep 2007 @ 05:09 by a-d : Aaaahhhh, THANK you, thank you, Nic!
I LOVE good Ol Coco!... and her suits!... Had many exquisitely pretty suits maself... inspired by Coco among others; Christian Dior is another of my Favorites. He also revolutionzed the Fashion World
( my Mom and I were both Clothes/Fashion- crazy... ( my Mom was a very good designer!... with an extra ordinary feeling for high-high quality fabrics.)
"A Real Lady never showed her knees"... Remember that one, eh? ( Coco always had skirts to go just below the knees).
Too bad they started to fake (make them synthetic) the perfumes in the Seventies... and Chanel nr 5 like so many other Perfumes,'ve never been the same!...( I could tell (smell) the difference... )
I do look forward to see the Movie! : )  

5 Oct 2007 @ 12:19 by nraye : Woowwa Hold the Horses
there Dear A-d - because - Ole CC here was ALSO - almost - the Chief Colaborator - in the Second World War.

Her dear Friend, whom she helped when he was finally jailed after Nurenburg, was the Head of SS, the secret intelligence arm of Hitler. She was also of course, a neighbour and friend to Churchill in the South of FRance, and it was Churchill who saved her bacon when she was arrested in France afterwards. She then went to Geneva to be with unnamed friend of SS friend bloke.

there is a long build up in her strange life to this peculiar position of being so socially elevated that she floated above it all.

Quite frighteningly an example of where pure Modernity can take one when let to run riot or completely in its own direction. Let this be a PRIME example to everyone on the moral limitations of so called Modernity. I always maintained that Modernity compromised Feminity and this could be a further proof.

Not much time left to continue, in these buzy times.  

10 Oct 2007 @ 11:59 by nraye : This TOO
This biography on completion shows the fragile level of the new modernity of society as fragments. Chanel's life and career spans two world wars, she was intimately connected to both. The mysterious movements and concerns of some of associated friends and v close friends brings to mind the famous film of Harry Lime in the Third Man with Orson Welles. This film and its black and white displays the lack of trust in anyone's actual affiliation or identity within one's immediate society. So many cross currents of national aspirations mixed with individuals need to earn a buck to survive, including demoted Duke and Counts from Russia, without a penny to their name, but hugely sort after by aspiring American rich divorcees are all added into this boiling pot!!

The Third Man epitomizes to a T the 1930's - 40's dilemma.  

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