Chanel's Resort 2010 Collection

Chanel presented their 2010 Cruise/Resort collection on May 14th in Venice, once a favorite beachside haunt of Coco's. Resort collections, now frequently called Cruise collections, fall between Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer seasons and were traditionally aimed at the socialites headed off to spend their winters at a sunny and chic resort town. Lagerfeld's Chanel show was quite an event, taking place on the sand with a boardwalk for a runway. The pieces are a creative blend of traditional Venetian motifs (the cocked hat, the lorgnette sunglasses referencing carnival masks), 30s café society (the wigs, for one thing), and classic Chanel (striped sweaters, simple and elegant evening dresses, etc.). Since Chanel really made a name for herself in the French resort town of Deauville by adapting seaside sportswear for an upscale clientele, this collection (like Lagerfeld's Spring/Summer 09 Couture collection) harkens back to Coco's original visions.

This dress (and its accompanying hat) nod strongly to the nineteen-teens, when Chanel had her first commercial successes, as a milliner as well as a designer.
Here, a 20s-style dress (see one of Coco's originals at the Met here).
This men's look is very 30s Palm Beach with a few Edwardian touches thrown in- the high collar, the hair parted at the side, the close fit of the jacket.

There are many more interesting looks in the collection. What do you think? Are they wearable? Appropriate? True to Chanel? Or is a Cruise collection irrelevant right now?

Speaking of resorts, I'm off to the beach (although it's not a fancy one). More next week!

Coco Avant Chanel

April 22 marked the French release of the film Coco Avant Chanel, a Warner Bros./Sony Pictures movie about Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's early years. Chanel is played by Audrey Tatou, of Amelie and Da Vinci Code fame. The screenplay is based on Edmonde Charles-Roux's biography of Chanel titled "l'Irreguliere" (The Non-Conformist), considered to be the authoritative work on the "true" Chanel story (Mademoiselle Coco loved to cultivate flowery stories about her life, and the house of Chanel sometimes maintains intrigue about certain uncertainties surrounding elements of her designs). It will be interesting to see a movie-industry take on the story (a good, if not entirely complete, synopsis of which can be found on Wikipedia here); there may be an interesting dialogue between the almost-inevitable additions and embellishments added to make the movie interesting and the fictitious claims made by Chanel in her lifetime.

Apparently Karl Lagerfeld, who is the current designer for Chanel, is overseeing (but not creating) the costume designs. I think he does a wonderful job of reinterpreting Mademoiselle Coco's design ideology for the 21st century, so his understanding of her work will be an asset, I'm sure.

I'm not sure yet where the movie ends; I wonder if the film will touch on the break in her design history. She shacked up with a Nazi during World War II (which damaged her PR in France...) and reopened her house in 1954, gaining widespread success- especially in the United States-in the early 1960s.

Younger fashionistas and the public, who tend to associate Chanel with Lagerfeld's designs, the Chanel suit, and the quilted bag, will hopefully be educated on the more complex and nontraditional elements of Chanel's design credo- sportswear, the appropriation of "lower-class" materials in haute couture, impeccable tailoring skills, and the stripping away of excess adornment, to name a few. These are the things that I really love about Chanel, much more than two-tone shoes and tweed cardigan jackets. Also, every Chanel design incorporates some element that is personally important to her-- the black and white, the camellia, etc.-- all of which are more significant after learning about her history.

If you're interested in more reading, Cecil Beaton's diary includes notes on his lunch dates with Mademoiselle Coco, at that point a relatively elderly woman. Talk about a fiesty old lady- she seems to have been quite the piece of work (which is no surprise).

I have yet to figure out where the film is showing in the states, since it's in French and seems to be appearing only in select theatres. If anyone finds it, let me know!

Here are a few links:
The NY Times review
The trailer (in French)
Some stills from the movie, courtesy of Fashionologie. Looks great!

Undated photo of Gabrielle Chanel, c.1920, from the Life Photo Archive.

It Girls, the Fashion Industry, and Powerful Women

The Washington Post featured a thought-provoking article by Robin Givhan, called "Fashion Loves an It Girl, but Still Doesn't Get It." The premise of the article is that while recently, the fashion industry has embraced a broad range of nontraditional style icons (Michelle Obama, singer Beth Ditto), it still refuses to produce wearable clothing for the average woman.

She mentions that today's fashion "it girls" are symbols of "power and fearlessness," women who are unafraid to show their strong personalities to the public and the media. Because Obama is 45 and African-American and Ditto is a plus-size lesbian, Givhan writes that by choosing them as icons, "The fashion industry surprised the naysayers who did not believe it had the capacity -- even when it would be to the industry's financial benefit -- to look beyond its often narrow definition of style, beauty and glamour."

One issue with this statement is that fashion doesn't one-sidedly choose its icons. To be a fashion icon, you have to be invested in fashion to begin with. Obama and Ditto would not be "it girls" if they wore Coldwater Creek (not to bash it, but not the height of fashion)- they have both consciously chosen to invest in up-and-coming designers and take risks in their attire. The fashion industry has returned the favor because they see powerful, nontraditional women who are bringing design to the public eye. While fashion icons are often women with the ideal body type of their time (and this is where Ditto and Obama are nontraditional), those that have really driven fashion throughout history are the ones at the forefront, patronizing designers that make new and fearless choices.

Givhan goes on to write. "...even as the fashion industry honors individual self-awareness and chutzpah, it continues to chip away at the dignity of women as a whole with each model that it sends down a runway. It's difficult to reconcile fashion's slobbering affection for an individual woman who is in the public eye with what they are willing to dole out to women as a group."
Here we have to remember that fashion does not encompass every piece of attire on the market. Fashion itself doesn't really deal with "women as a group"- the phenomenon of fashion (see post on the Brooklyn museum for a definition) has historically been limited to the upper classes, those with enough money to invest in frequently-changing styles and no need to wear clothes that are convenient or comfortable enough to work in. Fashions are not necessarily meant to work for the masses- they are supposed to be noticeable, and above all, new.

That being said, many great designers in the past have respected and celebrated the female form and have made clothes that were both novel and wearable. Chanel's clothes were comfortable and easy to move in, skimming the lines of the body (see this great example). Balenciaga used his mastery of construction to move away from the restrictive shapes of Dior and towards a new silhouette where clothes floated over the body in a graceful and flattering way (see here).

To be continued!

Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Mark O'Donald, USN