Coco Chanel_ An Intimate Life - Lisa Chaney [41]
Antoinette had been first at Aubazine, then followed Julia-Berthe and Gabrielle to the convent at Moulins, and was now emulating her sister in trying her hand as a singer in Vichy. She was pretty and vivacious but had no voice, and like Gabrielle before her, was failing to find any work. As a result, Adrienne was supporting her. With some of her sister Gabrielle’s boldness, and a genuine charm, Antoinette became a decorative ambassador for Chanel Modes. With nothing like Gabrielle’s intelligence or initiative, however, she was biddable and worked hard. Meanwhile, Gabrielle’s salon had begun to outgrow its cramped quarters on the boulevard Malesherbes, and she turned to her lover for assistance. Would Arthur give her the finances to expand?
Arthur was businessman enough to recognize his mistress’s intelligence and energy, and although she wasn’t making great sums of money, he believed she had potential. As the entrepreneur in him thrived on risk, he agreed to fund the opening of Gabrielle’s own shop. In this way, at the beginning of 1911, she took on the leasehold of some first-floor rooms on the rue Cambon, just off the fashionable rue de Rivoli.
The perceptive and witty diarist Elisabeth de Gramont, Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, shines some light on the situation while also giving the impression that Gabrielle was at a loose end and without many ideas. Elisabeth de Gramont recalled an evening at her half brother Armand de Gramont’s house. Arthur was also present, and he and Elisabeth fell into conversation on the subject of his mistress, Gabrielle. He said, “I am very attached to Coco and I am looking for an occupation for her.” Perhaps Arthur wished, here, to boost his own importance when implying that she didn’t already have something to do:
I am a very busy man and I am not free in the afternoon; she is on her own, she gets bored, and this irritates me . . . Idleness can hang heavily on some women, especially when they are intelligent, and Coco is intelligent. You’ve got family, relatives, social obligations . . . She’s got nothing; when she’s through with polishing her nails, the time between two and eight is void . . . We don’t always realize how important schedules are in people’s emotional lives; we always speak of the heart, it is not that difficult to attune two hearts, but to synchronize two watches is a problem. I set her up in a little millinery shop, but it hasn’t worked very well. However, she’s energetic, she has the qualities of a businesswoman, and she is from Auvergne [meaning that she was determined and hardworking] . . . she would like to open a shop that sells knitwear and jerseys. Well, we will see.20
With a dressmaker already working at 21 rue Cambon, the law forbade Gabrielle to do the same thing. (Manufacturing knitwear and jerseys would get around this prohibition because they were not counted as dresses.) It is said that Gabrielle merely chanced upon this site, but our little milliner had in fact chosen it with great care, fully aware of its prime position. It was at the heart of that quarter encompassing the rue de la Paix, rue Royale, rue Saint-Honoré and the streets leading off and around the magnificent place Vendôme. For many years, this Parisian district had been the one where the most costly silks, jewels, furs, hats, perfumes and fashions were to be found.
8
Refashioning Paris
As a collective visual statement, fashion is about the appearance of the individual and of the group. It is at once about self-presentation and conformity. Like music, it is improvisation within a structure. As the human condition doesn’t appear to respond well to too much repetition, fashion could be described as one of our antidotes to boredom. It must be new, but not too new; novel rather than radically different. A kind of planned spontaneity, it is applied art, making use of potentiality. Clothes can change more rapidly than other artifacts; although they