Monday, May 7, 2012

Coco Chanel




For our living histories project, I decided to portrait Coco Chanel and the book I chose is called 'Coco Chanel' , it is written by Ann Gaines and it is part of the series 'Women in the Arts'. 

1) Discuss two things about your person's upbringing and how this may have affected his/her life path.

Firstly, Gabrielle Chanel had a very difficult childhood. Her parents were very poor and they worked very hard to be able to support the family. When Gabrielle was only 12, her mother died of exhaustion at a very young age. She was only 33. After her mother's death, Gabrielle's father decided that he had no more obligation to take care of his children and he send his sons to work on a farm and sends his daughters to be raised and educated by nuns. There, the nuns tought Chanel to sew, a skill that would later be very useful to her.  Some people believe that the very strict uniforms of the orphanage may have influenced her sense of style, this could have brought her ideas for her future designs. For example, she may have had the idea of using the color black for her legendary little black dress after seeing the nuns in the orphanage. 
Because Chanel had such a difficult upbringing, she appreciated the little things in life and she was not an extravagant person. Even when she became rich and famous, she was very down to earth and this is also shown in her work. Her creation are classic, elegant and most importantly, timeless. 
The essential 'little black dress', the legendary Chanel suit and the unforgettable Chanel No. 5 perfume have remained at the top since their creation. 

2) Discuss a second unique piece of information about your chosen human being.

One thing I found very interesting as I was reading the book I chose about Coco Chanel is that during her life, not a single biography about her was released. Coco worked with two people to write a biography about her life but one after the other, they both abandoned the project because she was too hard to work with, too perfectionist and she wanted too much control over what would be written in the books. 

Her life reflected a phrase often attributed to her: "Fashion goes; style remains."

No comments:

Post a Comment