Reading Reflection No. 1

For my first book, I read Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life by Lisa Chaney,

What a great book! If you are interested in Chanel, the brand, or Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the individual, I highly recommend it!

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. What an incredible woman, What an incredible life. I was most surprised by her resilience. Going through all the things that she went through, in life, I would have given up. Just given up. She started out with a terrible childhood. She lost her entire family either through abandon or death. The amount of great loss that she experienced in her life would be looked at as debilitating, but she ended up using it to her advantage. I am not going to lie, along with her resilience, the fact that she may have prostituted herself out to keep afloat in her younger years REALLY surprised me. I found this a bit scandalous, but according to the cook, this was not uncommon at that time.

Gabrielle's resilience and tenacity are the things that I admire the most about her. She didn't give up and she dared to be bold, to be different. As a person who hates ordinary, I absolutely loved this about her. She experienced adversity from her peers. She was quite the talk of the town, being so daring with wearing pants and going against the common "flare" of the time. She beamed with simple elegance, mostly noted by her admirers, both men and women. I didn't realize just the impact that this woman had in fashion and society. She thought outside the box and didn't give a damn what others thought. This may have hindered her in the beginning of her career, but she did not let that deter her. She had a vision and stayed steady.

I don't know that there was anything that I didn't admire about this woman. Personally, I might not have done the things she did, but that was a different time. If there was something that I wouldn't admire about her, it would be the use of others or the alleged prostitution, but this could also be construed as  ingenuity.

Gabrielle had an incredible understanding for fashion, networking and business. It was said, in the book, that she made this all look easy. That is a great leader. A great entrepreneur. She had a knack for being around the right people at the right times, whether through networking or through finding them on her own. She always knew the right people to help her with what she wanted or needed. I feel this came from the men in her life. She was a mistress to a few men and she had the foresight to learn from those men and have them help her create her empire through investments, teaching her the ins-and-outs of business and networking.

I think the most confusing thing about this reading was all the french terms. I kept looking people up to see what they looked like and looking up terms so that I could know what I was reading. Trying to keep all these straight was confusing. There is so much missing from Gabrielle's life story, we may never know the real story, but from what Lisa Chaney was able to piece together, we can get a pretty good idea.

If I had the chance to sit down with Gabrielle today, I would ask her if it were worth it. Was it worth giving up family life and being lonely and secluded to have this life that she created? As a woman, I think women can have it all, but at what cost. Was the price that she paid too high, and would she do it all over again? Would she have tried to settle down with the only man that she ever loved? Would she have tried to be tamed by Arthur Capel? I hope not, but given the time period, it was uncommon for women to be as bold as she was. I know that I should probably ask her questions about her business decisions, but I would be far more interested in her personal life and how that factored into her business. So many men played into what she became, I would want to know why, if these handful of men helped create her fashion house, she felt no obligation to stay with them. I believe that is where her strong personality and feminism come into play. I know that she had foresight and a dream of what she wanted and wasn't afraid to go for it, but I would want to know, in her words why the drive to keep on and move past these men. I am enthralled with her personal life.

I believe that Gabrielle had a strong work ethic. She was constantly at work, even when she wasn't at the stores. As I have previously said, it was stated in the book that she made this look easy. It was her head seamstress that said this of her. She made it look like she was casually coming into the stores to check on things and then leaving in her chauffeured Rolls Royce. Behind the scenes, she was not only sketching these amazing works of art for people to wear, She was managing a fashion house, on her own. She was employing seamstresses and clerks, making sure things stayed in order. The seamstress also stated that she would host dinner parties and attend affairs of royalty and such. She was not merely attending parties and hosting dinner parties, these affairs were major connections. Her attendance was necessary to further her fashion house. Through the people that she met at these gatherings, she was introduced to other artists from other countries with whom she would import their textiles and what not. She was constantly working...and maybe having some fun while doing it. I don't know that I would share her work ethic to her degree. I do believe that to have a thriving business, it needs to be a top priority, but I don't want it to be my main priority and be the one thing that is behind every single thing that I do or decision I make.