Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life

by Lisa Chaney

  When it finally came, there was much doubt as to whether Chanel could continue without her. While the owner, Jacques Wertheimer — son of Gabrielle’s partner, Pierre, who had effectively bankrolled Chanel since 1954—wished to continue, Chanel couture was to languish for some time. In 1974, Jacques’s sons, Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, took over the running of the company. With the intention of maintaining Chanel as a family business, they refused to bring in shareholders; the number of outlets permitted to sell the perfumes was drastically reduced; Gabrielle’s policy of employing Chanel’s own perfumers, craftsmen and jewelers was continued, and large sums were spent on promotion.

  For many years, the Wertheimers have been well served by a number of gifted employees, the most distinguished of whom have remained with the company for long periods, sometimes for most of their working lives. These include “the eye behind the image,” the late Jacques Helleu, Chanel’s artistic director, who oversaw the changing image of Chanel. While the most famous advertisement for Chanel was Marilyn Monroe’s quip “What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel № 5 of course,” Helleu used some of the world’s best photographers, such as Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, David Bailey, Luc Besson and Ridley Scott, to photograph and film some of the world’s most glamorous women — these included Catherine Deneuve, Candice Bergen, Carole Bouquet, Nicole Kidman, Audrey Tatou and Keira Knightley — in expensive and influential advertising campaigns. With their underlying theme of luxury and mystique, these highly successful promotions fulfilled Alain Wertheimer’s maxim: “The secret of advertising is to make it real and a dream at the same time.”

  By the end of the twenties, Gabrielle and Beaux’s first perfume, № 5, had been so successful it became Gabrielle’s chief source of revenue. In more recent times, Chanel’s chief parfumeur, Jacques Polge, has ensured the continuing quality of this, the fragrance the company understandably refers to as its “treasure.” In his long years at Chanel, Jacques Polge — a gracious and abstracted man, who speaks of the “poetry of fragrance”—has admirably extended the company’s repertoire, with several renowned perfumes of his own. Among them are: Coco Mademoiselle, Chanel № 19 and Beige.

  When Gabrielle told Beaux not to hold back on the costly ingredients for № 5, she instructed him to make it the most exclusive in the world. Sixty years later, Alain Wertheimer was determined to follow the same principle, and he set out to improve on what had become the perfume’s slightly flagging image of exclusivity. In time, this goal was to prove successful for the perfumes, jewelry and accessories. But for several years after Gabrielle’s death, the dress designers employed to take up her baton made the mistake of trying to emulate her. Admittedly, their task was a daunting one; a friend of Gabrielle’s remarked on the fact that “in the House of Chanel everything went through her, nothing could be conceived, let alone carried out, without her.”2 As it was, Chanel couture appeared to have lost its way.

  Since before the Second World War, prêt-à-porter had been a growing challenge to the far greater but more time-consuming skills of haute couture, and after the war, a growing number of couture houses would be forced to close their doors. Following Gabrielle’s return in 1954, she herself had held out, but in 1977, Chanel took on a designer, Philippe Guyborget, to design prêt-à-porter. In 1983, the Parisian-trained couturier Karl Lagerfeld, then at the fashion house Chloé, was persuaded to take over this role. His rapid success led to an invitation from Chanel to design both their haute couture and prêt-à-porter. Speaking of the Wertheimers’ brief, that he “make something of Chanel,” Lagerfeld recalls their telling him that if he couldn’t, they would sell the company.

  Young Lagerfeld had arrived in Paris from Germany in 1953 or 1954, intent on a career in fashion. He worked first as an illustrator for fashion houses, was taken on as an apprentice at Pierre Balmain, and then became a couturier at the house of Jean Patou. Lagerfeld’s first collection, in 1958, was poorly received; the second was praised as having a “kind of understated chic, elegance,” while in the following year, 1960, the designer produced “the shortest skirts in Paris.” This collection was criticized for being “more like clever… and immensely salable ready-to-wear, not couture.” Lagerfeld’s work was seen as good but not groundbreaking. For the next couple of years, he effectively dropped out; he has said he spent “a lot of time on beaches.”

  By 1962, he was back in Paris, and for the next twenty years honed his skills as a freelance designer, collaborating simultaneously with numerous fashion houses, such as Chloé, Valentino and Fendi on prêt-à-porter and haute couture. In 1984, a year after he took over at Chanel, this phenomenally energetic designer also created his own label, Karl Lagerfeld, and continued forging his reputation, as one authority put it, “through consistently strong work for the numerous lines he produces every year.” For the rest of that decade, while his designs were not the only reason for Chanel’s growing profile, they were a major factor in its steady progress.

  Lagerfeld says, “When I took over Chanel, no one wanted to work for an old company. I accepted against everyone’s advice, to breathe some life back into a house which was more than a Sleeping Beauty, it wasn’t trendy at all.”3 From the outset, he knew that “I must blow hot and cold. I must excite and enrage the high priestesses who’d say “Mademoiselle would turn in her grave.” He recalls his first few collections for Chanel with “very short skirts, very wide shoulders, oversized jewelry, a bit ‘too much’ of everything, but it was the right time to do it.” On another occasion, he describes having “to push it, nearly, I wouldn’t say into the vulgarity, but the eighties were not really about distinction.” Creating endless variations on Gabrielle’s signature themes, as the years passed, Lagerfeld wittily combined elements of street style with the simple elegance of Chanel classics.

  His ability to reflect his times, combined with skilled manipulation of the grammar of Gabrielle’s design, enabled Lagerfeld to reinvigorate her design house with notable success. Throughout the nineties, the House of Chanel grew still more successful, and by 2001, Lagerfeld was being dubbed one of “the most high-profile designers of the previous twenty years.” But this, he says, has been easy, because no other fashion house has such immediately recognizable “elements” as Chanel. These are the markers, Gabrielle’s signature pieces, long ago core elements of twentieth-century women’s dress. Indeed, a woman’s wardrobe today is virtually unthinkable without, at the very least, one of Gabrielle’s innovations: a little black dress, costume jewelry, any bag with a shoulder strap, jumpers for women, trousers for women, suits for women, slingback shoes, a trench coat, a strapless dress and, finally, that perfume in its modernist bottle, so iconic it has remained virtually unchanged for ninety years.

  Lagerfeld says, “All that together makes it that I can play with the elements like a musician plays with notes. You don’t have to make the same music if you’re a decent musician.”4

  Using formidable designing skills, honed with rigorous couture training, his enviable unself-consciousness has enabled Lagerfeld, for a staggering fifty years and more, to design an immense body of work with fluency and ease. (With Chanel Inc. as financer, he has also helped preserve the highly skilled — largely Parisian — couture artisans with the recent purchase of several distinguished companies, such as Lesage (embroidery), Goossens (jewelry), and Massaro (footwear), whose time-consuming and, therefore, very costly work would otherwise have led to their closure.) While Lagerfeld knows his work “has reestablished Chanel’s image,” he is quite aware that

  Not all this was very Chanel… but my job is to give the idea that this is what Chanel is. What it is in reality, what it once was or what it might have been once doesn’t matter. And it can have a certain magic which includes everything… the name, the myth, the woman, myself… but the whole thing must be something of today… which is rooted in the past.5

  Enjoying his boast “I’m the first [fashion designer] who has made a name for himself with a name that wasn’t his,” Lagerfeld made it
seem smart to do this and highly profitable for Chanel. As a result, several long-established houses have been revamped by new designers. Meanwhile, Lagerfeld claims he is simply “a visitor passing through,” saying, “I haven’t made an empire with my name on it,” but like a mercenary, “I go wherever they pay me. I don’t have to think about marketing, or sales, that’s none of my business.” (The pragmatist in him, nonetheless, adds, “I like to be used by people who invest… if you don’t invest, if you don’t spend — the box is closed.”)

  Gabrielle is mistakenly portrayed as a hardheaded businesswoman, but like Lagerfeld after her, she was pragmatic and businesslike about her creativity, without its being business that motivated her. She would say, “It was thought that I had a mind for business, I don’t… Business matters and balance sheets bore me to death. If I want to add up I count on my fingers.”6 And while her fights with the Wertheimers were about money, their primary source wasn’t a financial one. Rather it was from Gabrielle’s great pride, her insecurity and the fear of losing her independence. Her success arose from her recognition and anticipation of her times, combined with an intelligent employment of the right people to run the business for her. Her business, like her successor’s, was, above all, designing.

  Unlike Lagerfeld, Gabrielle never dreamed of working for anyone else. Neither did any relationship, or age, make her feel able to retire from the House of Chanel:

  They didn’t understand that, neither men nor the others, that still there was one thing I had done myself — the Maison Chanel is my only possession, the rest was thrown at me. It’s the only thing I’ve made — all I’ve had, I didn’t want anything… but everybody was giving me everything. I didn’t want anything from anybody; I had made something on my own.7

  As we have seen, Gabrielle’s house became her raison d’être, and she identified with it more than anything: it was her. It also led her to great loneliness.

  Lagerfeld, meanwhile, doesn’t profess to have a vocation or a message, and in an interview with the formidable fashion journalist Suzy Menkes, he says, “I have no direction, line, etc. I am not that serious. In fact, I’m not serious at all. That’s why it works.” When asked what he believes his legacy will be, he replies, “I never think what’s going on after me. I don’t care!”8

  Multilingual, intelligent, ironic and pragmatic, Lagerfeld prides himself on his culture and appears driven to constant motion. In addition to his multifarious activities for several design houses, his designing portfolio includes costumes and stage sets for theater and film, house interiors, and a steady stream of books, many of which are presentations of his own photographs.

  While Lagerfeld’s success at Chanel means he is almost synonymous with Gabrielle’s house, the image he has cultivated has made him almost as iconic a figure as Gabrielle herself. Using her “elements” with great ingenuity, Lagerfeld has gained for himself and Chanel even greater cachet with his interweaving of aspects of Gabrielle’s personal story into his designs. He has created collections based on Russia (Dmitri Pavlovich, Igor Stravinsky) and Britain (Arthur Capel), and made short films referring to episodes in Gabrielle’s life, such as her love affair with Stravinsky. In combination with Lagerfeld’s own image, his fashion has helped create a new version of Gabrielle. Albeit simplifying her, over the years his endless recreation of her designs has done much to perpetuate Gabrielle’s personal legend for a modern audience. The atmosphere that now surrounds her reminds us that Gabrielle once referred to her life as “the maze of my legendary fame.”

  Evoking herself, Gabrielle said, “Those on whom legends are built are their legends.”9 In the latter part of her life, however, she need not have exaggerated her role as the person who had single-handedly revolutionized women’s appearance, for she was, and remains, the most influential designer of her century.

  The source of Gabrielle’s phenomenal success lay in her instinctive understanding of the new epoch and her anticipation, if not dictation, of what it needed. The source of Gabrielle’s greatness lay beyond simple success. She believed she had been put on this earth for a purpose: “I was working toward a new society.” And dress was only the most visible aspect of more profound changes she helped to bring about. During the course of her extraordinary and unconventional journey — from abject poverty to a new kind of glamour — Gabrielle Chanel had helped forge the very idea of modern woman, and would say: “That is why I was born. That is why I have endured.”10

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Of the many people who have helped me with this book, I owe the first debt of gratitude to my agent, Clare Alexander, whose idea it was. My initial doubts were soon transformed into an obsession. And, while Clare failed to curb this, she has my heartfelt thanks for her unfailing encouragement and professionalism. These were given with habitual good grace during the writing of this most difficult of lives.

  Marie Louise de Clermont-Tonnerre, director of external relations at Chanel, kindly gave her support to the writing of the book, making my research at the Chanel Conservatoire possible.

  The prime source for Gabrielle Chanel is Paul Morand’s L’Allure de Chanel (copyright © Editions Hermann), and I am most grateful to Arthur Cohen, at Editions Hermann, who so readily gave me permission to quote freely from Gabrielle’s extraordinary memoir. Edmonde Charles Roux was Gabrielle’s first and supposedly exhaustive biographer, but no one can now think of writing anything on her without Morand’s book, published two years after Charles Roux’s.

  An apparently endless stream of writing on Gabrielle has appeared since these publications. Pierre Galante’s Mademoiselle Chanel, Marcel Haedrich’s Coco Chanel and Claude Delay’s Chanel Solitaire (particularly insightful with regard to Gabrielle’s inner life) are all notable for their perception and sensitivity. These authors were all Gabrielle’s friends, and I have drawn heavily on their work. Lilou Marquand’s insightful Chanel m’a dit has been helpful.

  Mary Davis’s Classic Chic: Music Fashion and Modernism; Valerie Steele’s Paris Fashion: A Cultural History; the contributors to Modern Woman Revisited; Judith Thurman’s magnificent biography of Colette, Secrets of the Flesh; Francis Steegmuller’s indispensable Cocteau; and Eugen Weber’s magisterial Peasants into Frenchmen were of great help in the development of my ideas.

  I am much indebted to those below, who kindly gave me interviews and whose knowledge, memories and thoughts have informed this book.

  Marika Genty, director of the Chanel Conservatoire, courteously dispensed her encyclopaedic knowledge of Gabrielle the couturier and also contributed her thoughtful and perceptive observations on Gabrielle the person. Jacques Polge, Director of Parfums Chanel, was immensely gracious, and I thank him for a fascinating and thought-provoking conversation about perfume and the mysteries of Chanel № 5. This was aided by Christopher Sheldrake, director of research and development. Patrick Doucet at the Chanel and Bourjois Perfume Conservatoire showed me the earliest Chanel cosmetics and № 5 bottles and ably described № 5’s possible chronology. Julie Dey-dier, of the Chanel Conservatoire, helped me look through the remarkable collection of Gabrielle’s designs, stored away on the outskirts of Paris; Odile Babin was always helpful; and Cecile Goddet-Dirles familiarized me with the large Chanel image database.

  Claude Delay generously expanded on her memoir of Gabrielle, Chanel Solitaire, for me; Lady Sybille Derwent (previously of French Vogue) emphasized the unconcerned French attitude toward Gabrielle’s sexual penchants. Lady Derwent also recommended me to Susan Train, of American Vogue, who described Gabrielle’s 1954 comeback with great immediacy; in Ireland, Michel Déon collected me from Galway airport with his large hound and, while we ate shellfish by the sea, talked inspiringly about Gabrielle.

  Madame Gabrielle Labrunie was most kind in sharing her memories of her great-aunt Gabrielle; Amanda Mackenzie Stuart’s help was critical. Suggesting Francine du Plessix Gray’s memoir, Them, Amanda also gave me much information on the Balsan family, and introduced me to William Lee. To William, my d
ebt is considerable; for his painstaking translations of Dmitri Pavlovich’s diaries and for helping me to understand better this poignant man. Dmitri’s grandson, Prince David Chavchavadze, has my warm thanks for allowing the first publication of Dmitri’s diary excerpts regarding his relationship with Gabrielle.

  Etienne Balsan’s grandson and great-nephew, Antoine Balsan and Philippe Gontier, respectively, told me about their delightful forebear, and have kindly permitted me to reproduce one of the few photographs of him still in their possession. Olivia de Havilland kindly wrote to me about what she knew; the Honorable Harry Fane’s timely contribution is much appreciated; Philip Norcross Gross provided the most up-to-date information on Antoinette Chanel; and Lilou Marquand’s astute observations to me were instructive.

  I am very grateful to Comte Jean d’Harcourt for his memories, which were an informative and unsettling addition to the puzzle of Gabrielle’s wartime activities, and to Hubert de Givenchy, who mourned Gabrielle’s shabby treatment of their long-standing mutual friend Cristóbal Balenciaga, who yet brought himself to attend her funeral. On more than one occasion Danniel Rangel was the perfect ambassador on my behalf; Willy Rizzo’s reminiscences of his friendship with Gabrielle are reflected in the quality of observation and sympathy evident in his photographs of her, some of the best that anyone made. Jean-Noël Liaut’s recommendations, anecdotes and vignettes were valuable, and amusing.

  My thanks to Father Tom McCoog, who directed me to Bernardo Caparrini’s crucial scholarship, and to Bernardo in turn, who recommended me to the archivist at Stonyhurst, David Knight. David was most assiduous on my behalf, ferreting out school logs and photos of Arthur Capel, and thus I was set on Arthur’s trail. This led to Arthur’s son-in-law, Sir Jeremy Hutchinson, whom I warmly thank for his memories of Diana Capel née Lister, and his insistence on introducing me to his stepson and Arthur’s grandson, Christopher Osborn. Christopher was extremely generous in lending me Arthur’s letters; allowing me to publish them here for the first time; discussing Arthur, Gabrielle and Diana’s dimly remembered story; and assisting me in sensitive negotiations.