Mademoiselle Read online

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  Perhaps nothing could have lived up to the fevered expectations of the crowd, but this collection brought a near-unanimous “tsk” of pity and disappointment. The models looked as they always had—like Coco; lithe brunettes all, with large bows worn atop low chignons. They presented the clothes as Chanel models always had, walking with hands in pockets and pelvises tilted forward, in deliberate, tutored imitation of Chanel’s own gait. Each girl emerged about six steps after the one before her, with as many as seven or eight appearing on the floor at once. The salon’s mirrored walls reflected their images infinitely around the space, creating the effect of a crowd of Chanel-like figures.

  The clothes immediately announced a departure from the reigning aesthetic. Unlike the couture being turned out by Dior, Fath, Balmain, and company, Chanel’s designs did nothing to accentuate the female form, but flowed smoothly, even modestly, over the body. The skirts stopped just below the knee. There was no revelation here, no exaggerated molding or extension of body parts, no décolleté, no drama at all.

  The French fashion press corps was merciless. “In the play of mirrors, we did not see the future, but a disappointing reflection of the past,” wrote the very influential Lucien François in Combat. Another journalist fumed, “All of Paris burned with impatience and curiosity for this … the biggest event of the season.… God was it ugly! How could women ever have dressed like this?” Le Monde’s review was similar: “Awaited with impatience, Chanel’s return has disappointed her admirers. Her collection offers nothing and is a melancholy throwback to shapeless silhouettes, with no trace of bust, waist or hips. One had the impression of flipping through a slightly yellowed old family photo album.”

  More than a few reviewers shared Le Monde’s displeasure, with many lamenting Chanel’s neglect of the holy trinity of female assets: “[A collection] without breasts, waist, or hips … A melancholy retrospective,” lamented one critic. “Chanel takes us back to yesteryear … no breasts, no waist, no hips,” mourned another. Although the audience remained coldly silent during the presentation, when it was all over, some spectators did not hesitate to voice their contempt loudly as they exited, with a rudeness startling in the elegant setting.

  What so repelled the French fashion critics seemed to be the anachronism of Chanel’s clothes, along with her tacit rejection of the highly structured looks now dominating haute couture. Certainly, her collection had failed to deliver any novelty. But would these objections alone inspire such anger? The harsh, dismissive tone of so many reviews suggested that Chanel had hit a nerve, that her offense extended beyond the sartorial.

  The key to Chanel’s offense may have lain in a stray remark made by an unidentified countess in the Cambon audience, which was overheard and quoted by a journalist. “[These] are phantoms’ dresses … very expensive for so much self-effacement,” she said, poetically condensing the entire problem. Phantoms are the spirits of the dead that return to haunt the living. Chanel was drawing French ire by conjuring ghosts—not just of couture past, but of politics past—the ghosts of history. Her comeback felt eerily premature to the French. It was too soon for them to enjoy her nostalgic 1930s fashions, for they brought back a flood of unsavory memories—of war, of death, and of the guilt attaching to part of France’s own population. Chanel was a phantom of collaboration and, to make matters worse, daring to charge her typically high prices, seeking profit despite her wrongdoing.

  The countess dismissed Coco’s simple style as expensive “self-effacement,” implicitly comparing it to the ornate trappings of Dior or Fath. Ironically, though, the greater offense may have been Chanel’s utter refusal to efface herself and the painful period she still evoked. She may have hidden upstairs, but Chanel had seen to it that her trademark image was stamped indelibly on the runway show, in the vast parade of models (and their infinitely mirrored reflections) who looked like Coco. It was the return of the repressed.

  France’s displeasure with Chanel’s past was something of an open secret. Journalist Rosamond Bernier, who later founded L’Oeil magazine, interviewed Coco in 1953 for American Vogue and sensed the mood of lingering hostility. “I didn’t know more than what people were saying … that she had behaved very badly.… There was still so much rancor, a desire to settle old scores. All of that overflowed onto Chanel. She had a very bad reputation at that time.” In a private handwritten note unearthed in a Paris archive, American fashion writer and Elsa Schiaparelli biographer Palmer White recalled France’s “antagonism” toward Chanel, incited by her “pro-Nazi activities.”

  Coco had felt the animosity within the first minutes of the show, and when it was over retreated upstairs to avoid visitors. “Mademoiselle is tired,” her staff repeated to the friends and well-wishers who tried politely to greet her at the end. But while she’d been wounded, Chanel never doubted herself, and she conveyed that confidence forcefully to her staff. Manon Ligeour recalled vividly Chanel’s refusal to bend to the criticism: “Mademoiselle was saying, ‘They’ll see! They’ll see!’ ”

  “She behaved as if others were wrong,” marveled Robert Chaillet, a lawyer for Pierre Wertheimer. In one of her few interviews directly after the show, Coco told Simone Baron of France-Soir, “People no longer know what elegance is. When I work, I think of the women I try to dress, not the couture house.… Once I helped liberate women. I’ll do it again.” And she did, this time by maneuvering around France, by way of America.

  While Europe insisted that Chanel was off her game, a pathetic Rip van Winkle of fashion, within a few weeks it became clear that Americans saw something else in her comeback: a fresh, modern, liberating way to dress that jibed perfectly with the United States’ ethos of unencumbered, easy living. The Americans were also naturally less sensitive to the bad political memories that Chanel had revived in France. And so, while French buyers turned up their noses, the American buyers who had ordered Chanel models were quickly besieged with demands. Within weeks, more Chanel originals were being ordered for American boutiques, and Chanel-inspired designs were lining the racks of stores across the United States, from corner dress shops to big department stores. In March 1954, one month after the first runway show, Life magazine ran a large spread about the Chanel phenomenon, announcing, “At 71, she brings us more than a style—she has caused a veritable tempest. She has decided to return and to conquer her old position—the first.” The commander in chief was back.

  The Americans had not misunderstood Chanel’s first return collection. They recognized it as a throwback—but this troubled them far less than it did the Europeans. The Los Angeles Times condensed its dismissive opinion of Chanel’s comeback into the title of its review: “Chanel à la page? [Chanel up to the minute?] But No!” Women’s Wear Daily admitted that the collection was “not going to break new fashion ground,” but then added, “the clothes are typically Chanel … graceful and easy”—and therein lay the explanation for the Americans’ interest.

  Coco’s comeback was not targeting the small and rarely profitable world of haute couture, but the legions of ready-to-wear customers who craved something “graceful and easy,” a release from the constrictive styles that had dominated fashion since the war. More than ever before, Chanel was determined to confer her vision upon the multitudes: “I will dress thousands of women,” she told American Vogue magazine that February of 1954. “I will start with a collection, the same size collection I used to make.… It won’t be a revolution, it won’t be shocking. Changes must not be brutal, must not be made all of a sudden. The eye must be given time to adapt itself to a new thought.”

  By March of that same year, America’s eye was adapting, and Vogue was lauding Chanel’s casual style, “the easy, underdone sort of clothes that [are] the basis of Chanelism.… Its influence is unmistakable.… [Her] suits are relaxing.… Going easy on waists … they don’t force.” And in July 1954, The New York Times ran a feature on the many Chanel-inspired suits and dresses already being sold at Bullock’s, Altman’
s, and Neiman Marcus, announcing that “The spirit of Chanel has made itself widely felt in the creation of the coming fall styles.… Fashion was ready for [Chanel’s] direct approach.”

  Once the European press got wind of Chanel’s success with the enormous and hugely important American market, its tone softened considerably. Complaints about Chanel’s refusal to change her style turned into paeans to her “consistency”: “The inventor of the still-fashionable sweater and the chemise dress of illustrious memory, Chanel, had retired from the world. What would she bring us after her long absence? Why, some Chanel of course! Cardigans, jersey suits, simple little dresses … the fashion press was disappointed, as if it had expected Chanel to become Dior or Fath!”

  Many journalists praised Chanel for having made such swift inroads into the crucial United States market: “For six million Americans, Paris fashion is ‘the Chanel storm’!” “Chanel’s entire collection has been bought by the Americans!” Coco had recognized that her look would hold instant appeal to the United States, which she deemed a logical, athletic country: “They’ve been offering women idiocies which made it impossible to walk or run. American women refused these before Frenchwomen, because American women are more practical.… They walk, they run.” On both sides of the Atlantic, reports of Chanel’s calamity gave way entirely to buzz about her bold, successful, and influential return to fashion.

  One person not surprised by this turn of events was Pierre Wertheimer, who had long profited from Coco’s iron will and superb instincts. When he had gone to see her on Cambon soon after that first disastrous show, he’d found her slightly dejected but already at work on her new collection. “I want to go on … and win,” she told him then.

  “Yes, you’re right to go on,” he answered, indicating that he stood ready to help.

  Things would get worse before they got better. Within one year, Chanel and her partners would lose more than 90 million francs. Most corporate backers would have walked away. Under the best of circumstances, couture is not a highly profitable venture, and Wertheimer owned only the perfume division, not Chanel’s couture house. He had invested in Coco’s comeback with an eye toward its potential for boosting perfume sales. Now, a number of his board members were explicitly advising him against any further investment in Chanel couture. But Pierre could see past the significant losses they’d incurred, past Chanel’s advanced age and the initial bad reviews. Not only did he agree to continue backing her; he renegotiated their arrangement dramatically. On May 24, 1954, in a startling display of trust and foresight, Wertheimer agreed to buy Chanel out entirely, acquiring (for an undisclosed price) the couture house, Chanel’s Cambon real estate, her textile mills, and even the Chanel publishing company, which had not produced anything since Pierre Iribe’s journal, Le Témoin, in the 1930s.

  In short, Parfums Chanel, the Wertheimers’ business, purchased the rights to all things Chanel—everything bearing her name or those famous initials. What did he give Coco in exchange for all that? In addition to whatever initial payment he made to her, and the perfume royalties (2 percent of profits annually) that he would continue to pay her, Pierre agreed to underwrite all of Coco’s business and personal expenses, including the cost of producing her collections, all employee salaries, her apartment at the Ritz, her personal servants, travel, meals, entertainment, and her Rolls-Royce and chauffeur. No expenditure was too minor—Wertheimer even agreed to pay Coco’s telephone bills and buy her postage stamps. At the same time, Chanel would retain total artistic control over her collections. She could now devote herself entirely to her work. For the rest of her life, Coco would never have to think a single thought about money again. She was free.

  Did Chanel cede control of her empire so completely to Wertheimer purely for financial reasons? Certainly, money alone might explain her decision. She’d managed to find a way to return to her work without risking the life of luxury she so enjoyed. But in accepting this deal, Coco revealed more than a concern for material comforts. Divesting herself in this way of all practical, financial transactions, Chanel had, in a sense, transformed herself from captain of industry back into a courtesan, entrusting virtually all responsibility for her life to a wealthy man. Coco would finish out her career the way she’d started it, under the benign control of an affluent protector.

  In retrospect, it makes sense. At seventy-one, Coco was now more alone than ever, with no significant lover in her life and little prospect of one. At times, she seemed to seek out intimate companionship with some of her models. Reports abounded of the amorous attention she paid to some of these young women, although it remained unclear if such flirtations led to consummation. “She was a seducer,” recalls former Chanel model Betty Catroux (using the masculine noun in French, séducteur, instead of the feminine, séductrice). “To me, Chanel was not a woman, or a mother. We saw her as a potential boyfriend!” adds Catroux.

  But such relationships could not counterbalance Chanel’s loneliness, or her pain at watching those closest to her die. She had begun reflecting aloud on her regrets, repeating often that her career had not brought her happiness. “The function of a woman is to be loved.… My life is a failure,” she told Claude Delay. “Women must show their weakness, never their strength.… A woman needs the regard of a man who loves her … without this gaze a woman dies.” Sometimes, Coco was moved to denounce all women with careers: “Women are becoming crazy. Men are living off them. The women are working and paying. It’s ridiculous. Women are becoming monsters because they want to be men.”

  Here, Coco was conjuring Boy Capel, who’d often chided her forty years earlier: “Do not forget that you are a woman.” Now, Chanel ostensibly condemned other women with Boy’s words, but the real target was surely herself. Chanel had, of course, tried—and failed—to be a more traditional woman, to marry and have a family. But when those opportunities slipped away, she had always found comfort in her work. Now that Coco had returned to work again, her solitude looked permanent, and she found it harder to ignore her doubts about the choices she’d made.

  The new contract with Pierre Wertheimer offered Chanel a way to reconcile returning to her career with her bitter regrets about the “unwomanly” life she’d led. Despite the terrible battles they’d waged against each other, the one ongoing masculine presence in her life had always been Pierre Wertheimer, and Coco let herself fall into Pierre’s strong, savvy, billionaire arms.

  Wertheimer never had cause to regret his decision. Within one year, Chanel had firmly reestablished herself as the queen of fashion. Response to her second return collection, in the late summer of 1954, bore no trace of the venom or condescension apparent only six months earlier, and Chanel seemed once more an inevitable force. “Paris has rediscovered her Chanel!” trumpeted L’Intransigeant. “Chanel is once again Chanel!” proclaimed another headline. Even when Chanel did insert some daring new detail, reviewers praised not her innovation, but her inherent, perennial Chanel-ness. In 1955, for example, when Coco dabbled with leopard fur, American Vogue announced “the look is unmistakably 1955. But it is also unmistakably Chanel.”

  The rest of the fashion world now fell in step behind Chanel. The New Look faded away; waists were uncinched and returned to their natural place; the exaggerated hips returned to human proportions. “We’ve realized,” wrote one journalist, “that fashion is immutable.”

  “Chanel has the secret of making those timeless clothes … which always look elegant,” wrote another. By 1957, The New York Times could report: “This winter, everyone is imitating [Chanel’s] designs.”

  Chanel regained her footing by relying on her signature ability to marry simplicity and beauty. Her chemise dresses were extremely comfortable without being shapeless—slightly fitted in the front, often tied low at the waist with a fabric half belt. Her suits remained casual, with unfitted, often open jackets paired with elegant mid-length skirts—all equipped with numerous, perfectly placed pockets, large enough to accommodate small items such as a cigarette lighte
r or a lipstick. (Chanel thought women’s clothes should be as practical as men’s.)

  As always, Chanel’s flair for color and texture lent her suits and dresses special luxury and interest. She continued to hew to her preferred neutral and soft tones, seeking to reproduce the natural tones she found during her walks in the country or the Bois de Boulogne. Sometimes she would return to the studio with leaves, branches, or bits of moss she’d gathered, to show her staff exactly the shade of soft green or brown she wanted to re-create. A textile artist hired by Chanel recalled a day when Coco tried to explain the particular color she was seeking for a fabric: “Mademoiselle … plucked a flower [from a vase], then another and still another.… She crushed the petals, mixed them all up, and showed me the result. ‘That’s what I want,’ she said.”

  Chanel did permit herself one bright color—she showed a number of suits in a dramatic red, explaining that “it is the color of blood and we have it in the interior of our bodies, so we should show it a bit on the outside.” She experimented with her classic fabrics, featuring, for example, a new, unusually soft, herringbone tweed in an exaggeratedly wide pattern, as well as Shetland sweaters whose open weave lent them a lighter, more feminine texture. Uppermost always in Chanel’s mind was the importance of the woman’s own, bodily experience of the clothes. The way a garment felt on the inside mattered at least as much as how it looked on the outside. She had no use for any fabric that could scratch or irritate, such as lamé.