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By
Rosie
Dead Rebel Of The Week
~ Style and Sense ~
Style is what separates a lady from a woman. A lady knows when to wear a black dress or when to wear a pair of jeans. And when wearing that black dress a lady knows when to add pearls or diamonds. Of course, you never wear diamonds during the day. A woman throws on some perfume as she is preparing for her nightly ritual; a lady has a scent. It is her scent. It is layered and subtle and reminds those around her of her. It’s never just a bottle of perfume, but the essence of her.
These are things taught to me by my mother and the women in her family. These are lessons passed from generation to generation.
This particular Dead Rebel of the Week has special meaning to my family. She is the one who took an adversary, made her a friend, and opened a new world up to her.
Let me tell you a bit about her first.
Gabrielle was her name. She was born August 19, 1883. Her mom died when she was 12 and her father sent her and her sister to a Catholic orphanage. As she grew up she practiced sewing as proper young ladies should. This was not such a hardship on our Gabrielle since she loved to sew. At 18 she left the convent and took employment working in women’s hosiery.
Shortly thereafter she met a fabulously wealthy and immensely popular man by the name of Etienne Balsan. To keep herself busy she designed and wore very unique hats and soon the wealthy ladies of the crowd requested she make these hats for them. Etienne even allowed her to use his apartment in order to conduct business. But alas, Etienne and Gabrielle’s affair did not last, and she then hooked up with a gentleman by the name of Arthur Capel. Mr. Capel leased a warehouse for her so that she could continue to grow her business of producing such extraordinary hats. Shortly thereafter he ended his affair with her and left her with a leased apartment/warehouse/factory type deal. To make money Gabrielle tried to produce enough hats to support herself, but it was not enough. According to her lease she could not deal in any “couture” type of fabrics (high fashion fancy stuff), so Gabrielle went out and bought a whole bunch of jerseys, styled them, and sold them on her own. The House of Chanel was born.
At some point, during all of this, she decided to accept her nickname and started going by Coco.
Now, most of the story I’ve told so far, about the affairs and such, I learned one day while driving in the car listening to Paul Harvey on the radio. If you don’t know who he is, I am sorry for you. I grew up listening to him and I love him. Anyway… As Paul was telling me “The Rest of the Story” (as he does) I started thinking, “Why do the women in my family hold her in such high regard?” I knew there was something special there… so I sat my 89 year old grandmother down to find out why Coco Chanel is such an inspiration to us.
Apparently, Coco was having an affair with some Russian dude in France. Upon going to Russia with him to meet the dude’s father, who worked in the palace, she happened to also meet a courtesan of the Tsar. The courtesan was beautiful, smart, funny, but also a very unhappy Lithuanian woman. Her name was Anna. Coco, realizing that this woman could make a very strong adversary at court, befriended her instead. She found out that Anna’s daughter was also very much into designing and making clothes, and this woman wanted her daughter to move to America. Coco wanted to take the child to France with her, but Anna insisted her daughter go to America instead. Coco contacted friends in the Bulova family and arranged to have Anna’s daughter brought to America and live with the family as their in-house stylist. Anna was my great-great grandmother.
My great-grandma never forgot her roots or who helped her get where she was. My family has always admired Coco for what she did not only for us, but for the world.
Coco was the first to maintain that “Oh hell yes, black is indeed a color to be worn with pride and not just for funerals”. She borrowed many cuts and looks from men’s clothes so that we would be more comfortable and then Coco gave us that Little Black Dress every single one of us own. She gave us Chanel No.5… my personal scent.
Coco Chanel lived life her way and made it to the top. What in the hell more do you want from a Dead Rebel than that?
