INSPIRED BY: THE ALLURE OF COCO CHANEL

Posted on June 6th, by legrandfromage in fashion, Knotoryus. No Comments

“For people think of everything, they imagine every sort of hypothesis, apart from one: that one works and that one takes no notice of them.”

-Coco Chanel -

“The Allure of Chanel” is as close to an official Coco Chanel autobiography as we’ll ever get. It is entirely made up of notes made by Paul Morand during their conversations as perparation for an authorised book about her life. The notes were discovered after Chanel’s death in 1971. This fascinating book seems to stem from an age in which people still conversed enough to be able to form their thoughts into highly quotable idioms, opinions and provocations, so I will skip the traditional review and instead give you a random selection of quotes.

“I watched the eccentric people parade past and I said to myself: “There exists in the world things that I should be and which I am not.”

“Our servants wear pleated head-dresses, because from the age of fifteen they have cut off and sold their hair.”

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“A memory should have a moral ending: it’s its raison d’être, otherwise it’s mere gossip.”

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“It’s better, by the way, to deprive yourself of things than for others to do so.”

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“In another ten years there will be scarcely any couturier’s salons: there will just be society couturiers and we will hurry along to the Dior ball, to the Patou cocktail party.”

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“Madame de Chévigné was the first woman in the world to have said ‘Merde’.”

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“Satie was talking to me about ballet. He suddenly stopped speaking, for Misia, with her brioche on her head, looking anxious and sniffing some dark intrigue, was appraoching his chair. Satie, with his hand covering his twisted mouth and his goatee beard, his pince-nez dangling, whispered to me: ‘Here comes the cat, let’s hide our birds…’”