Mademoiselle Quotes

“I wanted to escape, and to become the center of a universe of my own creation, instead of remaining on the margins or even becoming part of other people’s universe.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Thin, androgynous, simply dressed in striped naval-uniform-style suits, or schoolboy sports clothes and blazers, the “Chanel woman” conjured the silhouette of the war’s millions of soldiers—the young men dying just out of sight of the general population.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Jersey was an ignoble material, considered unworthy of being used for any garment seen in public. It came only in beige or gray; it shredded easily, showed any mistake or correction in sewing, and tended to pucker. In the hierarchy of fabrics, jersey occupied the lowest rung. Jersey was working-class. But Chanel knew something about making the most of humble circumstances. She turned those yards of jersey into tubular chemise dresses and skirts—garments that hung loose and straight, requiring a minimum of stitching and draping.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“When Coco couldn’t squeeze herself into something one way, she simply found—or created—another way, even if she needed a sharp instrument to do it.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“One of her earliest innovations involved cutting open the front of men’s sweaters and adding buttons or ribbon trim—thus giving rise to the precursor of the cardigan, which later became one of her staples. The origin of this idea had been simple: Coco disliked pulling men’s sweaters, with their tight neck openings, over her head and mussing her hair.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Gabrielle Palasse-Labrunie believed her aunt deliberately suppressed any early aptitude she’d had with a needle: “She refused to sew, not even a button. She used to sew when she was younger of course, but she’d forgotten it all.” Instead, Coco dreamed up her creations, communicated her vision to the workers, and let them assume the responsibility of execution. She was a creative visionary—management not labor.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“She had never formally studied fashion or apprenticed in a couture house. Her strength lay in imagination and instinct. Coco knew what she wanted to look like, and she understood how much her vision could appeal to other women.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Coco had a deep, physical relationship to her materials, an innate sense of how fabric should drape and flow over a body. She threw herself physically into the act of creation.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“There was virtually never anything revealing or overtly sexual about her clothes, but they were indisputably sensual—precisely because Chanel gave pride of place to the body’s simple materiality: the flesh, muscle, and bone beneath the cloth. “For an outfit to be pretty, the woman wearing it must give the impression of being completely nude underneath it,” she said.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Family, she later told Morand, is nothing more than a series of “charming illusions … mirages that make you believe that the world is inhabited by other versions of yourself.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“she had seen enough of her mother’s life to acquire a healthy mistrust of men, marriage, and motherhood. She had seen that, for women, love and attachment led to disgrace and humiliation.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“The core of Chanel's business model, the essence of the style that Paul Poiret dubbed "miserabilisme de luxe" or "luxurious poverty".

A woman, Chanel declared, equals envy plus vanity plus chatter plus a confused mind.

Fascism made expert use of the charms of well-cut clothes and eye-catching accessories. But fascism and fashion as two systems also resemble each other on a deeper level. Both play upon the struggle between two basic and contradictory impulses: the desire to confirm and the desire to be original. Both exploit the power generated when vast numbers of people imitate a given behavior.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“The little black dress turned the color associated with housemaids’ uniforms and widow’s weeds into a marker of privileged yet.… accessible—and somehow American (Ford-like)—freedom. Chanel summed up the phenomenon simply: “Before me, no one would have dared dress in black. For four or five years, I did nothing but black, with a little white collar, which sold like hotcakes, I made a fortune. Everyone wore a little black dress … movie actresses, housemaids.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Colors are impossible,” she said. “These women, I am going to put them in goddamned black.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Luxury is the coat a woman throws inside out over an armchair … and the underside is more valuable than the exterior.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Having so thoroughly reinvented herself, she had little sense of belonging anywhere and was, at heart, very solitary.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“The clothes were humble, but conveyed—inversely—an aura of status. “Chanel is master of her art and her art resides in jersey,” declared Vogue. Chanel had found a way to charge duchesses a fortune for the privilege of dressing in materials worn by their servants—the ultimate revenge for this nécessiteuse—this once “needy girl” from the provincial orphanage.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Nothing telegraphs wealth and stature like a coat with a fur collar. But make that coat out of common jersey, and the fur collar out of cheap and lowly rabbit, and you’ve undermined the implied value of the coat. Now, sell it at an exorbitant price, as if the coat were made of imported silk trimmed with sable, and you’ve arrived at the core of Chanel’s business model, the essence of the style that Paul Poiret dubbed “misérabilisme de luxe,” or “luxurious poverty.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“In 1915, one of Chanel’s simple jersey dresses sold for about 7,000 francs, or the equivalent of $3,700 in today’s dollars. But it was hardly the materials or labor that made it so costly. Jersey was cheap; most pieces were unlined, and Chanel did not pay her seamstresses very much. It was the association with Coco herself, as she was quickly learning, that imparted value to the clothes. Their worth derived from the persona she was developing and the glamorous life she was leading.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“In Biarritz, Chanel perfected her inspired publicity tactic of offering clothes free of charge to beautiful and well-connected women. When these women then wore Coco’s clothes all over town to society parties, they became de facto house models—the most effective walking billboards imaginable.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Chanel would come to be known for a fashion sensibility distinguished by modern, airy lightness, crisp lines, and sparse adornments, but under Boy’s guidance (and with the help of his pocketbook), she indulged a somewhat different aesthetic sense at home. The avenue Gabriel apartment reflected Coco and Boy’s love of deep, golden tones, ornate lacquered furniture, mirrors in gilt frames, floral designs, English silver, Oriental vases, white satin bedding, and sofas piled with soft, puffy cushions—all enclosed by those dark folding screens.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Coco’s escape path gradually came into focus. It lay, she discovered, precisely in her difference, in the unique style she was creating for herself out of necessity. The boyishly simple style Coco sported looked irresistibly fresh and modern next to the floor-sweeping skirts, petticoats, and corseted bodices of her colleagues at Royallieu. In following her own contrarian instincts and tricking herself out like one of Balsan’s stable grooms, Coco set off her first fashion craze.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“If there’s one thing that interests no one, it’s someone’s life. If I wrote a book about my life, I would begin with today, with tomorrow. Why begin with childhood? Why youth? One should first offer an opinion about the era in which one is living—that’s more logical, newer, and more amusing. —COCO CHANEL”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“In her zeal to fit in, Chanel dissolved and re-created herself a thousand times. But more important, she figured out a way to let other women do that, too. The Chanel persona and design universe beckon us to insert our own narratives into the blank space Coco left for us. That hole where her life should be is actually a seductive invitation.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Her brilliant grasp of the psychological and social forces driving celebrity emulation led Chanel to create what one might call “wearable personality”—which we are all still wearing today.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

“Chanel knew from personal experience how deeply women can yearn to slip, as it were, into someone more comfortable, to burnish their own identities by borrowing someone else’s.”
― Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History