Rose Sgueglia - The Real Coco Chanel

The Real Coco Chanel

To my mum, for our 6.00 am coffee chats and for this adventure we fearlessly started together so many years ago.

Rose Sgueglia

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

White Owl

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Rose Sgueglia 2020

ISBN 978 1 52676 101 9

eISBN 978 1 52676 102 6

mobi ISBN 978 1 52676 103 3

The right of Rose Sgueglia to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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T o Jeffie Pike Durham, thank you for sharing your mums stories with me and for telling me about those wonderful times she had with Coco. Listening to your amazing tales from across the ocean has been a true gift which will stay with me forever.

To the team at the Pen & Sword for all the support and help and for answering my millions of questions.

To the Mary Evans Picture Library for the cover of this book and for the beautiful inside pictures.

To art historian and curator Gabriella Belli, who is currently director of the Foundation for the Municipal Museums of Venice for her time and for sharing with me her knowledge of the Culture Chanel exhibition.

To David Lubin, author of Shooting Kennedy: JFK and The Culture of Images, for sharing with me his thoughts on icons, myths and that famous Chanel pink suit.

To the London College of Fashion UAL for its striking pictures from the exhibition Coco Chanel: A New Portrait by Marion Pike (2013) which was held at the Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion UAL; and to Daniel Caulfield-Sriklad for taking such brilliant pictures.

To Elisabetta Barisoni, head of Ca Pesaro, and everyone at the Foundation for the Municipal Museums of Venice for being so lovely and helpful.

To everyone at Pushkin Press for all their support with the Paul Morand quotes.

To the House of Chanel for inspiring us all and for keeping the myth of Coco alive for all these years. And finally, to my family and friends for everything.

B efore I wrote this book, I really thought I knew who Coco Chanel was.

I remember I had this clear image in my head of a woman who was bitter, insufferable and probably not very pleasant to have been around.

But as I started to write, I discovered a very different Coco a smart businesswoman who made a strong contribution to the world of the arts. I found a woman who, excuse me for mentioning another heroine of mine, made in a very Beyonc manner, lemonade out of lemons. With the lemons, in question, being privation, poverty and the death of those she loved the most.

By researching and writing about Coco, it struck me that the way she created an almost instant intimacy with the artists, politicians and personalities of her time would be a very difficult thing to achieve today. She lived in a world where connections were made in the warmth of a bohemian flat not whilst looking at a cold screen; a world which made me nostalgic and eager to learn more.

Through my research, I discovered that Coco was actually incredibly shy and sensitive. And she was drawn to all things mystical. It is this little-known side of her personality that I was eager to uncover. In this biography, I tried to have a look at Coco, her friends, her universe and how she so majestically succeeded in living the life of the perfect romantic heroine with all the wonders and the horrors that this brought. With each chapter, I have grown fonder of her. She was, after all, someone who was not afraid to take risks and she learnt everything she knew about being a designer on her own.

In one of her conversations with her friend, writer Paul Morand, she said:

What did I know about my new profession? Nothing. I didnt know dressmakers existed. Did I have any idea of the revolution that I was about to stir up in clothing? By no means. One world was ending, another was about to be born. I was in the right place: an opportunity beckoned; I took it. I had grown up with this new century: I was therefore, the one to be consulted about its sartorial style. What were needed were simplicity, comfort and neatness: unwittingly, I offered all of that. True success is inevitable.

I can hardly believe how successful she was. She just saw an opportunity and grabbed it, found a way to make it work and for this, she will always have my deepest admiration.

She also had the most fascinating life. She was the woman who had Stravinsky as her lover and Misia Sert as a best friend. She made costumes for the Ballet Russes and then created the most feminine fragrance ever conceived. She fell in love once, twice and then once more but every relationship had its purpose, its soul.

And then I found a woman who had the most delicate soul, something that I only learnt after talking to Jeffie Pike Durham, one of the most interesting women I have ever met, and the daughter of painter Marion Pike.

From my research, I found that Coco was a smart woman who dared to use her connections to get where she wanted and she got lucky, successful and rich whilst doing that. She moved on, left her past behind and eventually, started to live off her work.

The trouble was that Coco did not stop there. She became a patron, she supported artists, mainly men, financially, and that gave her power and an authority which was not in tune with the highly patriarchal society of the time. The establishment started mocking her, calling her names one day she was a prostitute or a cocotte, and the next she was a drug addict.

It was like the world did not know what to do with her, what to do with her work, with her personality, and with her unbelievable confidence. Despite being so shy, as she was often described, she had a strength, a self-assurance that not many owned at the time. To see a woman succeed like that must have been difficult, especially for her lovers who tried to own her (Balsan), convince her that she was not enough (Capel) or get her to give up her business (Westminster).

And, lastly, when everyone thought they had seen the last of Mademoiselle Chanel, she came back. She had the courage to put her talent, her skills, and her taste to the service of women, once again.

Many have written about Coco and many still will, hopefully, one day, we will be able to find letters from her, telling us about her life, about her thoughts more or maybe just about her famous mysticism. I cannot help but wonder what she would think of the fashion world today, and what her thoughts would be on the current Chanel house. What would Coco think perhaps of the post-Karl Lagerfeld Chanel and what would she do differently?