Coco Avant Chanel – Film Review
Coco Avant Chanel – Film Review
“Coco Avant Chanel” is the new movie written and directed by Anne Fontaine on the early years of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971).
The drama is focusing on the future French Fashion icon’s legendary rise from a humble if not miserable childhood in an orphanage to her first millinery shop in 1912 to becoming the sought-after fashion designer in Paris in her 30′s and – as she prophesized with remarkable and inspiring determination and conviction while still fighting for survival – on the brink of fame and fortune…
That’s where the movie ends.
Before CHANEL. Before the wars. Before the glitz, power plays and intrigues that revolved around a woman that went her way alone with courage and charisma, opening not only new ways for Fashion – where she replaced the imprisonment of the corset with comfort and casual elegance and had the audacity to introduce women’s trousers into a man’s world… just to name these two revolutionary fashion trends she (and nobody else) set – but also bringing more freedom in many ways to all women of her time.
Coco Avant Chanel - the movie poster
Elegance is refusal
To Coco Chanel “Elegance is Refusal” and as we follow the world through her dark observing eyes, her elegance – and refusal – expands to a form of philosophy she lives without compromise.
She only talks when there is “… something to say… ” and what she says when sufficiently challenged – especially by the frivolous jet set playboys at the beginning of 1900-something – is revolutionary if not shocking . . . and never empty words – I like that. She was different, she was apart, she was herself and not to be ‘possessed’. . . and to me this was exactly what attracted the men who could buy everything… the men she needed to go her way.
Alone.
Without fear.
Driven by an inner knowing of her own Ability and Greatness.
This is the Message of the movie… a quiet yet profound movie that is an excellent portrayal in many ways.
Beautiful French actress Audrey Tautou fuses perfectly with the famous and highly influential Grande Dame de la Haute Couture she personifies; we are quickly drawn into the story and identify with her on her fascinating rags-to-riches journey.
Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions
Having always had a faible for “Chanel” and being addicted to Chanel No.5 … what interested me much more than her love affairs was what actually triggered that elegance and clarity of style, in other words her signature when it came to Fashion.
Coco Chanel Logo
Although some eye-opening moments are sensitively woven into the fabric of this movie – like when the young orphan is fascinated by the nuns’ black and white robes – Chanel’s future fetish colours… and one needs to remember that at the time black was only worn by men or mourners – or when she sees all those beauties in Deauville with hats like “cakes on their heads,” which motivates her to design a simpler silhouette… and when she starts cutting her English lover’s clothes down to fit her own slim body proportions . . . but there could have been more. If it had been the main theme, which it wasn’t.
But that’s what fascinates me most with Coco Chanel, to whom “Fashion is Architecture: it’s a matter of Proportions” and . . . “Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”
Simplicity is the keyword here. . . and Style – as … “Fashion fades away, but only Style remains the same”.
Where did she get that unique “style”? A style and simplicity that are reflected beautifully in the perfect Company logo (see above).
Perhaps we will see more of this in “Chanel after Coco”!
I’ll sure be there. . . it’s time well spent and even today it has a wonderfully encouraging and liberating message – check it out and you might see. . .”How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.”
That’s Coco Chanel – the legend lives on!
. . .
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