Love That! Designer Consignments: Know Your Designers! This Month - GUCCI

Love That! Designer Consignments: Know Your Designers! This Month - GUCCI

Know Your Designers: Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel Biography

• "Where should one use perfume?"  a young woman asked. "Wherever one wants to be kissed," I said.

• I don't understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little - if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that's the day she has a date with destiny. And it's best to be as pretty as possible for destiny. Coco Chanel.

From her first millinery shop, opened in 1912, to the 1920s, Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel rose to become one of the premier fashion designers in Paris, France. Replacing the corset with comfort and casual elegance, her fashion themes included simple suits and dresses, women's trousers, costume jewelry, perfume and textiles.

Coco Chanel claimed a birthdate of 1893 and a birthplace of Auvergne; she was actually born in 1883 in Saumur. According to her version of her life story, her mother worked in the poorhouse where Gabrielle was born, and died when Gabrielle was only six, leaving her father with five children whom he promptly abandoned to the care of relatives.


She adopted the name Coco during a brief career as a cafe and concert singer 1905-1908. First a mistress of a wealthy military officer then of an English industrialist, Coco Chanel drew on the resources of these patrons in setting up a millinery shop in Paris in 1910, expanding to Deauville and Biarritz. The two men also helped her find customers among women of society, and her simple hats became popular.

Soon Coco Chanel was expanding to couture, working in jersey, a first in the French fashion world. By the 1920s, her fashion house had expanded considerably, and her chemise set a fashion trend with its "little boy" look. Her relaxed fashions, short skirts, and casual look were in sharp contrast to the corset fashions popular in the previous decades. Chanel herself dressed in mannish clothes, and adapted these more comfortable fashions which other women also found liberating.

In 1922 Coco Chanel introduced a perfume, Chanel No. 5, which became and remained popular, and remains a profitable product of Chanel's company. Pierre Wertheimer became her partner in the perfume business in 1924, and perhaps also her lover. Wertheimer owned 70% of the company; Coco Chanel received 10% and her friend Bader 20%. The Wertheimers continue to control the perfume company today.

Coco Chanel introduced her signature cardigan jacket in 1925 and signature "little black dress" in 1926. Most of her fashions had a staying power, and didn't change much from year to year -- or even generation to generation.

Coco Chanel briefly served as a nurse in World War I. Nazi occupation meant the fashion business in Paris was cut off for some years; Chanel's affair during World War II with a Nazi officer also resulted in some years of diminished popularity and an exile of sorts to Switzerland. In 1954 her comeback restored her to the first ranks of haute couture. Her natural, casual clothing including the Chanel suit once again caught the eye -- and purses -- of women. She introduced pea jackets and bell bottom pants for women. She was still working in 1971 when she died. Karl Lagerfeld has been chief designer of Chanel's fashion house since 1983.

In addition to her work with high fashion, Coco Chanel also designed stage costumes for such plays as Cocteau's Antigone (1923) andOedipus Rex (1937) and film costumes for several movies, including Renoir's La Regle de Jeu.Katharine Hepburn starred in the 1969 Broadway musical Coco based on the life of Coco Chanel.

Coco Chanel Bibliography:

• Berman, Phyllis and Zina Sawaya. "The billionaires behind Chanel." Forbes, 1989.
• Brower, Brock. "Chez Chanel: Couturiere and courtesan, Coco made her own rules as she freed women from old fussy, frilly fashions." Smithsonian, July 2001.
• Kennett, Frances. Coco: the life and lives of Gabrielle Chanel.
  
• Madsen, Axel. Chanel: a woman of her own. 1991.
  
• Richards, Melissa. Chanel: key collections. 2000.
  
• Wallach, Janet. Chanel: her style and her life. 1998.
  

Suggested Reading Related to Coco Chanel

• Coco Chanel Quotes
• Fashion - 20th Century

Coco Chanel on the Web:

Coco Chanel's designs helped set the fashion tone for the 20th century. Find biographies and other information about one of the best-known designers especially in the 1920s and 1950s.

• Coco Chanel: "Time 100" feature includes 3-page biography, audio of Chanel's voice, photos, a basic timeline and a fun quiz.
• Chanel: Chanel's official website, including clips of new collections.
• Coco Chanel: Innovator and Icon: The Woman Behind the Designs: biography from Aime Joseph, emphasizing her fashion contributions
• Chanel, the Couturier, Dead in Paris: Copy of the obituary for Coco Chanel which ran in the New York Times at the time of her death.
• January 25, 1971: Copy of the obituary for Coco Chanel which ran in Time at the time of her death.

More About Coco Chanel

• Fashion Designer: little black dress, Chanel suit, Chanel jacket
• France, Switzerland
• 20th century

Know Your Designers! This Month - GUCCI

The Gucci Story

Did You Know there's Gucci movie to star Russell Crowe as Maurizio Gucci, directed by Ridley Scott?

Born in 1881, craftsman’s son Guccio Gucci founded the House of Gucci as a saddlery shop in Florence in 1906. Guccio's first talent was his craftsmanship in leather goods. He started out selling leather bags to horsemen in the 1920’s and progressed to luxury luggage as his clients graduated from equine transportation to horseless carriages. In 1938 Guccio Gucci opened his first retail shop on the Via Condotti in Rome.

Guccio Gucci, dishwasher to travel bag merchant
The company's history really began in 1921 with patriarch Guccio Gucci, a Florentine dishwasher turned leather merchant, who began selling leather travel bags. Surviving both the Depression and World War II, the family business prospered on its use of a distinctively flawed leather called "cuoio grasso," the ruffled surface of which, superimposed with the twin Gs of the family name, became a global sensation in the years after the war.

Aldo builds the company despite family feuds
Unfortunately, a family schism began with Guccio's sons. Aldo, the sharp-minded businessman, expanded Gucci's business into new markets, shrewdly identifying its merchandise with distinct markings like red-and-green webbing. He relentlessly pushed for expansion, opening stores in Paris, New York, even Tokyo. By 1974, author Sara Gay Forden wrote in her book, The House of Gucci, "The Gucci empire ... numbered fourteen stores and forty-six franchised boutiques around the world. In just twenty years Aldo had built Gucci from a $6,000 corporation and a small shop in the Savoy Plaza Hotel into a glittering empire spanning the United States, Europe, and Asia."

But Aldo wasn't completely above board. He also wound up in a $7 million tax fraud scandal, which ultimately enabled his nephew Maurizio to take control over the company board of directors. Maurizio, son of Aldo's brother Rodolfo, had already crossed swords with his father over his marriage to Patrizia Reggiani, a truck driver's daughter whom the elder Guccis saw as a gold-digger marrying her way to wealth. A fiery feud followed Rodolfo's death, after which Maurizio produced documents signing Rodolfo's shares over to Maurizio, which both saved him from massive inheritance taxes and made him a primary shareholder.

That brought him squarely into conflict with Aldo. The legal battles that followed culminated with Aldo's son Paolo squaring off with Maurizio, Aldo having been sent to prison in 1986 at the age of 81. The family was disintegrating; boardroom meetings were punctuated by flying ashtrays and screamed obscenities.

While the family fights the company grows
But there was a silver lining even in acrimony. "Ironically, the fighting helped fuel the notoriety of the name," Forden said. "It was a rare case where negative publicity wasn't necessarily a bad thing. At one point I interviewed Luigi Pirovano, who was Rodolfo Gucci's driver, and later Maurizio's. He said the family would fight and fight, and people would pour into the stores and the sales would grow, and it was as though there was a connection between the two." Meanwhile, celebrities, led by Jackie Kennedy, embraced the brand.

Money, blood takes its toll
Fighting between the relatives (and across generational lines) took its toll. By 1989, nearly 50 percent of the business had been bought out by Investcorp, a group of investment bankers angling for shares of the business. Maurizio was ostensibly in charge, but Investcorp was in the driver's seat. Maurizio put together a top-notch team: Gucci America CEO Domenico de Sole, creative director Dawn Mello, and head designer Tom Ford. It was an attempt by Maurizio to realize his forward-looking vision of Gucci as a modern corporate fashion entity.

 And, like many visionaries, he failed.

Embroiling himself in a spectacular divorce from Patrizia, Maurizio proceeded to run up unprecedented debts. He was considered a visionary leader but a poor manager by colleagues, which, coinciding with plummeting sales in the early '90s, caused Maurizio to be edged out of the company by Investcorp.

Tom Ford rises to the top
De Sole and Ford advanced to the top tier of Gucci under Investcorp's leadership, with Mello returning to Bergdorf Goodman. Ford began churning out racy, groundbreaking new designs, like stiletto pumps and G-strings, which would never have seen the light of day under the Guccis. They were exceedingly popular, and the Gucci name became more valuable than ever.

Current Gucci LeadershipFormer CEO Domenico de Sole and creative director Tom Ford, who restored Gucci's glitz after near bankruptcy in the 1990s, departed when majority shareholder Pinault-Printemps-Redoute sought to limit their autonomy. Current Gucci CEO Mark Lee is bullish about 2006. In an interview with Women's Wear Daily, he said that the company “had the best year in the history of the company, so we are quite proud and happy about that”. Gucci, founded in 1921 by a former dishwasher, now includes such well-known design labels as Yves St Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Sergio Rossi, Boucheron, Bedat & Co., Balenciaga, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen.