How comfort and freedom got stylish in France a century ago – and still are today
In vogue folklore, Gabrielle Chanel is superbly credited as the designer who popularised trousers, which makes them a key piece in women's wardrobes, and also for helping to liberate women from the tyranny of the corset. Rather than caging them in stuffy, superfluous designs, her garments prioritised freedom of movement and comfort. She broke down sartorial codes by borrowing elements of men's fashion, such as pockets and tweed, and erased waistlines and bust-lines to create androgynous silhouettes. Like every good trailblazer, Chanel's defiance of societal and sex norms early in her career befuddled a few and inspired others.
It's easy to see why some watch her as a feminist icon. But an exhibition about the designer in the Palais Galliera in Paris, stops short of calling Gabrielle, better named Coco, a feminist. While words such as"female" and"femininity" often seem to describe her creations, nowhere at the 16,145-sq-ft exhibition is feminism mentioned. That was a deliberate option, states Miren Arzalluz, museum manager and co-curator of Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto. A century past, when Coco Chanel was at the height of her sway, the term feminism wasn't widely known.
She talked in such terms," Arzalluz states. "But what is so obvious is that she put women in the centre of her creations. She committed her entire life to imagine a new method for women to experience fashion" The exhibition was publicised heavily since the first-ever retrospective of Chanel's prolific career in the French capital. While the life of the legendary couturière - a traumatic childhood as an abandoned orphan and the string of wealthy lovers who assert she had been a spy for German wisdom. She was scrutinised in films, books, and documentaries after her death in 1971, according to Arzalluz, the entire body of her work and her contribution to women's style is much less known.
The problem with facing a legend like Chanel is there are more than a hundred biographies about her, which speak mostly about her personal life," says the curator. The two-piece outfit, instantly recognisable as signature Chanel, remains a staple in the modern lady's luxury wardrobe nearly 70 years later than it was first introduced into the world and is plagiarised often in economical versions by high-street manufacturers. Wearers may not be able to put a finger on it, but the key lies in the details: the coat was designed to be soft and light and to feel more like a cardigan in relation to the usual structural blazer. Instead of cinching in at the waist, the skirt is designed to rest comfortably on top of the hips and angles slightly backwards to hang under the knee - details that offer the wearer freedom of movement.
Fashion is something which makes changes observable and contributes to change - Emilie Hammen. Similarly, Chanel's signature two-toned sling-back shoe is a"perfect union of form and function". The beige leather was selected to lengthen the look of the leg, and the black toe to safeguard the shoe from tear and wear, while at the same time giving the illusion of a smaller foot. The medium height of the heel and asymmetrical strap were also intentionally thought out to ensure maximum comfort. Tweed - formerly used in menswear - was a favourite with Coco Chanel; Along with the little black dress, which appeared on the cover of US Vogue in 1926, it has additionally become a fundamental staple in the contemporary women's style, almost a century later.
The arbiters of taste at Vogue announced - quite correctly - that the simple, shapeless, black sheath dress would become the fashion equivalent of this mass-produced Ford Model T car: a flexible, classic, accessible bit with worldwide appeal.
But while the designer was undisputedly influential in charting a new class in women's fashion, Emilie Hammen, a fashion historian who teaches at the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris, warns against committing any one designer - Chanel or otherwise - too much credit. "In the commercial mythology of vogue, we tend to associate one designer with a rather solid turning point in history." However, what I try to emphasise to my students is that fashion is something which makes changes observable and contributes to modify. It doesn't necessarily start there," she states. "Brands often want us to believe that one designer freed women. However, they were just designers who were probably extremely intelligent in capturing the intangible, and accelerating change."
The arbiters of taste at Vogue announced - quite correctly - that the simple, shapeless, black sheath dress would become the fashion equivalent of this mass-produced Ford Model T car: a flexible, classic, accessible bit with worldwide appeal.
But while the designer was undisputedly influential in charting a new class in women's fashion, Emilie Hammen, a fashion historian who teaches at the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris, warns against committing any one designer - Chanel or otherwise - too much credit. "In the commercial mythology of vogue, we tend to associate one designer with a rather solid turning point in history." However, what I try to emphasise to my students is that fashion is something which makes changes observable and contributes to modify. It doesn't necessarily start there," she states. "Brands often want us to believe that one designer freed women. However, they were just designers who were probably extremely intelligent in capturing the intangible, and accelerating change."