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‘When my customers come to me, they like to cross the threshold of some magic place; they feel a satisfaction that is perhaps a trace vulgar but that delights them: they are privileged characters who are incorporated into our legend. For them this is a far greater pleasure than ordering another suit. Legend is the consecration of fame.’ Coco Chanel, 1935
‘A dress is neither a tragedy, nor a painting; it is a charming and ephemeral creation, not an everlasting work of art. Fashion should die and die quickly, in order that commerce may survive … The more transient fashion is the more perfect it is. You can’t protect what is already dead.’
her death on 10th January 1971.
(Chanel hated the sight of doors, she said, for they reminded her of those who had already left, and those who would leave her again).
‘My age varies according to the days and the people I happen to be with,’ she told a young American journalist in 1959, when she was 76. ‘When I’m bored I feel very old, and since I’m extremely bored with you, I’m going to be a thousand years old in five minutes
She always said she was interested in what was ahead of her, not what had already finished.’
‘I should have liked a pink dress or a sky-blue one,’
If she made up stories from then on, you can understand why; for out of these loose threads, Gabrielle created an image of herself.
‘I thought all that was awful because in my novels there was nothing but silk pillows and white-lacquered furniture. I’d have liked to do everything in white lacquer. Sleeping in an alcove made me miserable, it humiliated me. I broke off bits of wood wherever I could, thinking, what old trash this is. I did it out of sheer wickedness, for the sake of destruction. When one considers all the things that go on in a child’s head … I wanted to kill myself.’
It was not the only time that Chanel talked about her desire to kill herself as a child – as if her longing to escape, and her craving for glamorous romance, could be fulfilled only in suicide.
‘Luxury is a necessity that begins where necessity ends.’
‘True generosity means accepting ingratitude.’
‘To disguise oneself is charming: to have oneself d...
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