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By Root 613 0

from?” This was not the first time such rumors had been abroad about Gabrielle, and over the years, they would persist. Neither does one believe that Gabrielle really cared that much. For more than fifty years she had been the subject of gossip, and she had never let it make any difference to the way she chose to lead her life. And while Women’s Wear Daily journalist Thelma Sweetinburgh would say that Gabrielle’s bisexuality “was a sort of known thing,” a young French woman on the staff of American Vogue at the time remembers, “I had to go once to see her, and was told to be careful. I believed, and all others did, too, that Chanel was bi-sexual. One assumed it to be the case. British and French laws were different. It wasn’t illegal in France and people were just less fussed about it really.”9

Assisted by her atelier and her mannequins, Gabrielle had returned from Switzerland with the intention of overcoming her opponents: those who reviled her war record and those who believed her work was now part of history. And during the course of 1954, what had at first appeared a disaster was set to become Gabrielle’s triumph. In November 1954, Elle put Suzy Parker on its cover in a seductive red Chanel suit and a pillbox hat, all trimmed around in fur.

As Gabrielle’s success became undeniable, she was asked why she had returned. She replied, “I was bored. It took me fifteen years to realize it. Today, I prefer disaster to nothingness.” Laying bare the drive that almost became her curse, in the years without work, Gabrielle had been lost, up against her demons and her loneliness. But by 1957, she was sailing triumphantly for America.

This was supposedly to accept what was then America’s greatest fashion accolade, the Neiman Marcus Fashion Oscar, in Dallas. However, while Dior had been awarded the Oscar before her, and Gabrielle had refused to follow in his footsteps, she allowed herself to be enticed to America because it was the fiftieth anniversary of the Neiman Marcus stores. As ever, alert to a publicity opportunity, she agreed to an interview with The New Yorker. Gabrielle informed the reporter that, in 1954, her reaction to her initially poor reception—everywhere except America—had been defiance: “I thought, I will show them! In America, there was great enthusiasm. In France I had to fight. But I did not mind. I love very much to battle. Now, in France they are trying to adapt my ideas. So much the better!”

Succumbing to Gabrielle’s wiles, the reporter wrote:

We’ve met some formidable charmers in our time, but none to surpass the great couturier and perfumer, Mlle Gabrielle Chanel, who came out of retirement . . . to present a collection of dresses and suit designs that have begun to affect women’s styles every bit as powerfully as her designs of thirty years ago . . . She was fresh from three strenuous weeks here in Dallas . . . at seventy-four, Mlle Chanel is sensationally good-looking, with dark-brown eyes, a brilliant smile, and the unquenchable vitality of a twenty-year-old . . . “I liked very much Texas. The people of Dallas, Ah, je les aime beaucoup. Très gentils, très charmants, très simples.”

Not long after this, Bettina Ballard wrote of her disappointment that many women no longer appeared to think for themselves, that “their very conformity in wearing what the stores or magazines tell them to, proves their lack of personal interest. They don’t mind spending money; it is the time and the boredom of shopping they resent. If anyone will take the burden off their shoulders they are happy.” Ballard cites the then new notion of personal dressers, describing it as like “eating pre-digested breakfast food. Imagine a Daisy Fellowes or any of the pre-war ladies of fashion allowing anyone to choose a handkerchief for them! Fortunately for those who work in fashion, women now ask for nothing better than to be led, bullied, dictated to, and given as little freedom of choice as possible.”10 Ballard appealed to them, saying that they were the ultimate critics, they shouldn’t always listen to the “experts’ and should think