可可·香奈爾

可可·香奈爾，原名加布里埃·香奈爾，曾被法國前文化部部長稱為20世紀法國永垂不朽的3位名人之一。盡管她出身低微，童年不幸，性格不羈，可是憑著絕對的自信和敏銳的直覺，她最終成為了時尚王國無可爭議的傳奇女王。她，就是時尚的化身；她，讓女人的生命怒放！

Coco Chanel wasn’t just ahead of her time， she was ahead of herself. If one looks at the work of contemporary fashion designers as different from one another as 1)Tom Ford， 2)Helmut Lang， 3)Miuccia Prada， 4)Jil Sander and 5)Donatella Versace， one sees that many of their strategies echo what Chanel once did. The way， 75 years ago， she mixed up the vocabulary of male and female clothes and created fashion that offered the wearer a feeling of hidden luxury rather than

6)ostentation are just two examples of how her taste and sense of style overlap with today’s fashion.

Chanel would not have defined herself as a feminist—in fact， she consistently spoke of femininity rather than of feminism—yet her work is unquestionably part of the liberation of women. She threw out a 7)life jacket， as it were， to women not once but twice， during two distinct periods decades apart: the 1920s and the ’50s. She not only 8)appropriated styles， fabrics and articles of clothing that were worn by men but also， beginning with how she dressed herself， appropriated sports clothes as part of the language of fashion. One can see how her style evolved out of necessity and 9)defiance. She couldn’t afford the fashionable clothes of the period—so she rejected them and made her own， using， say， the sports jackets and ties that were everyday male attire around the racetrack， where she was climbing her first social ladders.

By the late ’60s， Chanel had become part of what she once rebelled against and hated—the Establishment. But if one looks at documentary footage of her from that period， one can still feel the 10)spit and vinegar of the fiery peasant woman who began her fashion revolution against society by aiming at the head， with hats. Her boyish “11)flapper” creations were 12)in stark contrast to the 13)Belle Epoque 14)millinery that was in vogue at the time， and about which she asked， “How can a brain function under those things?” Something that Chanel can never be accused of is not using her brain. Her sharp mind is apparent in everything she did， from her savvy use of logos to her deep understanding of the power of personality and packaging， even the importance of being copied. And she was always quotable: “Fashion is not simply a matter of clothes. Fashion is in the air， born upon the wind. One 15)intuits it. It is in the sky and on the road.”

It is fitting， somehow， that Chanel was often photographed holding a cigarette or standing in front of her famous Art Deco wall of mirrors. Fashion tends to involve a good dose of 16)smoke and mirrors， so it should come as no surprise that Gabrielle Chanel’s version of her life involved a multitude of lies， 17)inventions， cover-ups and revisions. But as Prada said to me: “She was really a genius. It’s hard to pin down exactly why， but it has something to do with her wanting to be different and wanting to be independent.”

Certainly her life was unpredictable. Even her death—in 1971， at the age of 87 in her private quarters at the Ritz Hotel—was a 18)plush ending that probably would not have been predicted for Chanel by the nuns in the Aubazine orphanage， where she spent time as a ward of the state after her mother died and her father ran off. No doubt the sisters at the convent in Moulins， who took her in when she was 17， raised their eyebrows when the young woman left the 19)seamstress job they had helped her get to try for a career as a 20)cabaret singer. This stint as a performer led her to take up with the local swells and become the backup mistress of Etienne Balsan， a playboy who would finance her move to Paris and the opening of her first hat business. That arrangement gave way to a bigger and better deal when she moved on to his friend， Arthur (“Boy”) Capel， who is said to have been the love of her life and who backed her expansion from hats to clothes and from Paris to the coastal resorts of Deauville and Biarritz. One of her first successes was the loose-fitting sweater， which she belted and teamed with a skirt. These early victories were similar to the clothes she had been making for herself—women’s clothes made out of Everyman materials such as jersey， usually associated with men’s 21)undergarments.

Throughout the ’20s， Chanel’s social， sexual and professional progress continued， and her eminence grew to the status of legend. By the early ’30s she’d been courted by Hollywood， gone and come back. She had almost married one of the richest men in Europe， the Duke of Westminster; when she didn’t， her explanation was， “There have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel.”

In fact， there were many Coco Chanels， just as her work had many phases and many styles， including Gypsy skirts， over-the-top fake jewelry and glittering evening wear—made of crystal and jet beads laid over black and white 22)georgette 23)crepe—not just the plainer jersey suits and “little black dresses” that made her famous. But probably the single element that most ensured Chanel’s being remembered， even when it would have been easier to 24)write her off， is not a piece of clothing but a form of liquid gold—Chanel No. 5， in its Art Deco bottle， which was launched in 1923. It was the first perfume to bear a designer’s name. By the time Katharine Hepburn played her on Broadway in 1969， Chanel had achieved first-name recognition and was simply Coco.

可可·香奈爾不僅僅只是領先于她的時代，她還領先于她自己。如果你看看當代那些時尚設計大師們的作品，例如湯姆·福德、海爾姆特·朗、繆西婭·普拉達、吉爾·桑達和唐娜泰拉·范思哲，盡管他們的作品風格各異，但是你仍能發現他們的許多理念都不過是在重復香奈爾曾經的策略。早在75年前，她就已經將男裝和女裝的元素相混合，并創造出了一種全新的時尚，令穿衣者體驗到一種低調的奢華，而不是闊綽的炫耀——僅從這兩方面我們就能看出，她當時對潮流的品位和感覺同今天的時尚是多么地

一致。

香奈爾從不認為她自己是名女權主義者——實際上，她總是在談論女性特質而非女權主義——然而她的作品卻無疑是女性解放運動中的一部分。在間隔數十年的兩個非常時期，她曾不止一次而是兩次向女性拋出了救生衣：一次在20世紀20年代，另一次在20世紀50年代。她不僅挪用了曾屬于男裝的風格、面料和款式，同時還用自己的著裝打扮將運動裝變成時尚語言的一部分。你能看出她的風格不單源自實用，同時也含反叛元素。因為買不起當時的流行服飾，于是她就反抗潮流，利用男士們日常在賽馬場所穿戴的運動夾克和領帶來創造自己的潮流，并以此向她的社會階梯邁出了第一步。……