There are certain names in fashion that have worldwide recognition. Regardless of how involved you are in the fashion world or how much you care or don’t about the latest fashion styles, Chanel and its logo have managed to be recognized around the world. The Number 5, the luxurious fashion, and the crossed-over Cs carry several years of history that started with the vision of a young woman from Saumur, France, named Gabrielle Chanel.
A past she tried to hide
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s mother died of tuberculosis, and after that, her father couldn’t support her and her siblings. (She had two sisters and three brothers. One of the brothers, unfortunately, passed away as a baby). So Chanel’s brothers were sent to work on the farm, and she and her sisters were sent to a religious orphanage. Chanel and her sisters grew up with very strict discipline rules. They learned how to sew at a very young age, and they were not allowed to play most games, read certain books, use certain words, or think in a certain way. This is a life that Gabrielle Coco Chanel really wanted to hide as she was building her business and gaining name recognition as a designer and business person.
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. - Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel.
Vision and Conviction
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel is part of fashion history because there is a clear moment in time before and after her fashion input. The way she wanted to portray women, and the aspirational world that she imagined in her childhood at the orphanage that later became her real life, are all valuable Political Fashion lessons.
The social context of the early twentieth century was very different from those we live in nowadays. Although today we still have evident gender inequity, back in the day, there were very few jobs that women were allowed to do. It was very challenging for women to find jobs where their skills were valued. It was even harder for women to start a business as the investments came from men who hesitated to invest in a woman’s project.
Coco’s relationships were critical to the expansion of her business. Coco started working as a seamstress and as a singer at a cabaret. Singing was her first true passion, and for a couple of years, she persuaded this career. However, after she met the wealthy textile heir Étienne Balsan, she was able to start her hat shop. Chanel used the sewing skills she learned at the orphanage to construct elegant and sophisticated hats that the Parisian elite loved and appreciated. At first, Chanel didn’t fully understand the concept of luxurious fashion goods, and she didn’t expect her hats could be sold at high prices.
Her wealthy clientele approached her, willing to pay three or four times the prices Chanel originally established. That’s how Chanel understood that luxurious goods were not just about exquisite craftsmanship and construction but also about a price that wasn’t affordable to everyone, and that created a sense of aspiration and exclusivity.
Nothing is more beautiful than freedom of the body. Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel.
Chanel’s fashion skyrocketed by reconceptualizing the idea of women’s fashion as a statement of what the role of women was and should be in society moving forward. After centuries of tied corsets and voluminous skirts that limited movement and suffocated the wearers, Chanel introduced her now classic tweed suits. Coco Chanel was also a pioneer in the concept of faux pearls. Faux pearl jewelry has been a strong element in Chanel’s aesthetic that the French fashion house still carries.
During the peak of her career, Chanel didn’t want to speak about her childhood or her time at the orphanage. She avoided questions regarding her past and focused on statements regarding her career and what would come next. However, it is interesting to see how the nun’s attire heavily influenced her signature black and white suits. It’s also intriguing how the careful technical skills she adopted from the orphanage translated into exquisite tailoring and attention to detail when constructing garments.
The War & The Fashion
By the time World War II started, Chanel had gained a solid reputation among the French elite and even among upper-class society members from other countries of Europe. Through several investigations, official documents, and letters, it can be concluded that Chanel had a relationship with German Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, a Gestapo spy and key asset to the Nazi intelligence organization. The Nazis kidnapped Chanel’s nephew and invaded Paris. This was when the Fashion Designer and businesswoman decided to leave France with her German partner.
After a time of uncertainty, unprecedented challenges, and literal life-or-death decisions, Chanel used her connections to act as a spy for the Nazis and gain the opportunity of seeing her nephew again.
The war ended, and France regained its autonomy. Chanel went back to France, but the country, the people, and the social and economic context were utterly different from what they were in previous years at the peak of her career.
Chanel ended up going back to the fashion world, but through the latest years of her career and her life, it was challenging for her to keep up with the way fashion was evolving as the decade of the 60s was becoming effortless, colorful and loud, a huge contrast to the clothes she was used to designing.
This happened decades before fashion magazines became mainstream, and studies about all the factors influencing fashion were available for fashion designers. After the death of Chanel, and a couple of years of a creative identity crisis, a talented German creative mind by the name of Karl Lagerfeld took over the House of Chanel. For decades, Lagerfeld reimagined the vision of Chanel with luxurious miniskirts, juvenile silhouettes with fine materials, and juxtapositions of prints that were both classic and bold simultaneously. In 2019, Lagerfeld passed away, and it seems like the House of Chanel is going through another creative identity crisis.
Another Identity Crisis?
Karl Lagerfeld managed to get global recognition. If not the first, he was one of the first creative directors. This means, obtaining creative control over a pre-established fashion house after a designer retired or passed away.
After Lagerfeld’s Chanel, the fashion house has struggled to keep up with the creative aspect of a luxury brand. The fashion world wasn’t the same when Chanel opened the doors of her first boutique as when Gabrielle Coco Chanel passed away. Likewise, many things happened in the decades when Lagerfeld took creative control over the French fashion house.
Streetwear and luxury merged with collaborations that celebrities loved, and clients enjoyed. Adidas x Gucci, Supreme x Louis Vuitton, Tiffany x Nike Air Force. Luxury fashion houses are responding to the demands of streetwear trends that have been in people’s minds for a while.
What does luxury mean in 2023?
Coco Chanel firmly disapproved of jeans, and short skirts, because she thought they were not luxurious. The way she dressed and dressed her models walked the runway illustrated the idea of luxury for the designer.
But if the founder of this brand lived in 2023, would she be handling the business as the current directors are handling it? It’s hard to tell.
With the rise of e-commerce, Chanel has limited the number of products available to buy online. This is because the brand wants to maintain the idea of exclusivity and the customer experience of buying a Chanel bag in person, at one of the boutiques.
This may seem like auto sabotage for the brand as e-commerce is becoming a very common practice for purchasing fashion goods. However, the strategy is working for the brand. In their 2022 report, they stated that their sales increased by 50% compared to 2020 sales. The perception of exclusivity still prevails with so many limitations on purchasing these bags. There are only 310 Chanel boutiques worldwide, which is a very small number compared to Gucci with 528, or Louis Vuitton with 460.
As the Chanel boutique locations are very limited, and some goods are not available online. Some consumers who follow and admire the brand save money for a very long time to travel to a city with a Chanel boutique and purchase their very first Chanel bag, almost as a trophy of accomplishment.
Consumers travel to these cities, and the demand for luxury goods increased significantly in 2022, with the euro being almost equal to the U.S. dollar. Folks were traveling to Europe for vacation, and it seemed like the best time to buy luxury goods after years of uncertainty and travel restrictions. The boutiques got crowded and busy, so Chanel decided to move one step forward on the path of elitism.
In the summer of 2022, Chanel announced they would start to introduce private boutiques. These boutiques would only be available to people who received an invitation from the House of Chanel. In a statement, CFO Philippe Blodiaux said that Chanel wanted to give a special experience to the pre-existent clients and “protect them.” So the questions started to surge: Who is the house of Chanel trying to “protect” the pre-existing clients from? The upper middle class who saves, desires, and visits the boutique over and over until it finally decides what their first Chanel accessory would be? The teenage girls who walk into the stores dreaming of getting their first job to one day afford one of these bags?
It is true that luxury fashion is not democratic and that an aspect that makes fashion luxurious is the aspirational component, where not the whole world is able to afford the fashion goods you are buying. A designer bag is almost like a pedestal where the consumer can stand out and show their wealth. But doesn’t it seem disrespectful to the “not pre-existing” clients to tell them that they are not special enough to visit their private stores? Is Chanel confusing luxury branding with cynical elitism? What would Coco Chanel think if she saw her name being used as a motive to restrict the elegance and femininity she ambitioned to provide to her clients in Paris?
This is not the only controversial decision that the French fashion house has made in recent years. In 2021, Chanel launched an advent calendar just in time for the Holiday season. Advent calendars have been popular in the last few years as they have 24 little gifts the consumer can open every day until December 24th. Beauty brands like Mac Cosmetics have made some successful advent calendars that sell small lipsticks, eyeshadows, and other beauty products for a fairly reasonable price considering the number of gifts. However, Chanel’s controversial 2021 advent calendar cost $825USD, and the gifts included modest pieces like stationery, stickers, tissues, fabric bags, samples, and only a few actual products. The Tik Tok reviews made some very loud noise about the disappointment and disrespect of the fashion brand for overpricing samples.
Fashion hits another pivotal moment walking away from the pandemic and receiving the Gen Z in the workforce, which is becoming a very important customer for luxurious fashion. It seems as if this time the problem of Chanel’s fashion house is not necessarily creative, but it’s more about the storytelling, the values, and concepts behind the way they present their products and collections.
A vast volume of Gen Z consumers doesn’t stand for being excluded, as they have been very active in social justice protests related to Black Lives Matter, Pride, Trans Rights, AAPIH Fairness, and many more meaningful movements.
The values of a Fashion house are more important than ever, and if a Fashion house decides to stand for pure elitism, with adequate quality and overpriced marketing, thinking their clients are naive, it’s only a matter of time before one of the first great fashion empires goes down.
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