Coco Chanel_ An Intimate Life - Lisa Chaney [145]
Sam Goldwyn had been unconcerned about Gabrielle’s return to France and agreed that she could design the costumes for Gloria Swanson’s forthcoming film, Tonight or Never, when Swanson was in Europe. When she came over to Paris, Gabrielle’s designs for her were deemed perfect. However, after two seasons of Gabrielle’s fashion dictatorship, the stars rebelled, and refused to wear clothes designed by the same person in all their films. Confirmed in their belief that Hollywood was more significant than Paris, they didn’t care if the designer they were rejecting was Coco Chanel. As a result, Gabrielle felt released from her contract with Goldwyn and didn’t return to Hollywood. The New Yorker published a witty piece on the reasons for her retreat:
The film gives Gloria a chance to dress up in a lot of expensive clothes . . . the gowns are credited to Chanel, the Paris dressmaker who recently made a much publicized trip to Hollywood, but I understand she left that center of light and learning in a huff. They told her her dresses weren’t sensational enough. She made a lady look like a lady. Hollywood wants a lady to look like two ladies.
Gabrielle and Goldwyn remained, nonetheless, on the best of terms, for their relationship had been mutually beneficial. Gabrielle’s success in Hollywood raised her status yet further in France; she had become grand on an international scale. It was also good for Goldwyn, who kept the prestigious association between the designer and his films.
While Poiret was going bankrupt—creditors seized all his assets—and many of Gabrielle’s rivals cut their prices, her own two Hollywood stipends of one million dollars were a considerable help in those tough years. She had lost a number of English and American clients, and while the Americans would eventually return in force, there were still many rich women in India and South America who could well afford her couture. Vogue, meanwhile, told the world that Coco Chanel had revolutionized Hollywood by putting the actress Ina Claire into white satin pajamas.
Once again, as in the First World War, in difficult times Gabrielle’s Hollywood endeavor had enhanced her reputation. Even so, the Depression of the thirties, following the crash of 1929, had a devastating effect on virtually every country in the world. Despite Gabrielle’s upbeat pronouncement—she said that, like Goldwyn, she believed the best way to survive lean times was to maintain the highest standards—this was a tense period. In 1930, while Gabrielle had a turnover of around 120 million francs and a workforce of around 2,400, in twenty-six workrooms, it has been said that in 1932 she was forced to cut her prices by half. And although managing to retain her huge workforce, she did temporarily reduce the luxury of some of her fabrics. Silk manufacturers, for example, were horrified when Gabrielle introduced the idea of evening dresses in cotton. She had been invited to do so by an English firm, Ferguson Brothers, to promote the use of their cotton fabrics. Thus Gabrielle’s spring 1931 collection included thirty-five cotton-piqué, lawn, muslin and organdy evening dresses. It proved very popular.
In the end, however, not only did Gabrielle retain the custom of some of her richest society clients, such as Daisy Fellowes, Lady Pamela Smith, the South American Madame Martínez de Hoz and the Americans Laura Corrigan and Barbara Hutton, by 1935 business was very much improved for Gabrielle. Her clientele had grown sufficiently that her workforce had now reached four thousand. The Duke of Westminster had permitted her to adapt his