A black and white photo, framed and hung on one of the most original offices of Paris, designed by Gustave Eiffel.For months, the image of a young Chanelle Chanelle presides over the office, luminous and Spartan of Miren Arzalluz, the director of the Palais Galliera, who has reopened after two years of remodeling, the creation of a permanent collection and the presentation of the sample thatThe spring-summer season that has become autumn-winter had to decort the spring-summer season.

Vital trajectory

El Galliera has dressed in Coco, but for this he has undressed Gabrielle Chanel.A tribute in which he has taken the scissors and has begun to open the seams of his life

And the result?A parade that levita the work of an essential fashion figure of the last century, of this and perhaps the next, thanks to the dresses, jewels and perfumes that she created.A parade that plans Chanel's life, a torrent of anecdotes, loves, rivalries with other designers, healthy or very dangerous friendships, of which they cross the line (with the Nazis of occupied France).

El Galliera has dressed in coconut, but for this he has undressed in Chanel.He has taken the scissors on the tip and has begun to rough.The Parisian sample is titled Fashion Manifesto.And one of those commandments is "Do not be afraid to copy" as explained in this video.

Six women who have worked directly in the sample or know the figure of Chanel well have drawn with the patronage's chalk a new outline of what it was, which he got (and hid) the girl who learned to sew a boarding school for the poor andsang in bars.

U want your mutuals to hug u, i want my mutuals to cook for me 🥺🥺😩🥵😋

— POO Tue Jul 20 22:43:47 +0000 2021

A few months ago, Magazine interviewed Miren Arzalluz, the Biscay historian who runs the chicken, when the reopening was set for last March.In the conversation, the expert remembered as “the relationship between politics and fashion is infinite, it is a song- he said-.The political root in fashion is very important with its protest component ".Starting from that base, Coco Chanel is in itself an ideology of fashion that has overcome all kinds of vicissitudes and the strictest judge: time.

Chanel promoted elegance based on freedom of movement, a natural attitude, away from extravencies, a timeless style for a new woman "

"Chanel promoted a new way of elegance," explains Arzalluz- based on the freedom of movement, a natural and developing attitude, chic and subtle, far from extravagances, a timeless style for a new woman ".The first keyword: timeless.

Gabrielle Chanel's living legacy is explained from simplicity and complexity, as if there was almost impossible cohabitation between the least is more than to mark the history of art and design in the twentieth century and dress up to feel better, moreFree, more independent: and a path for this is to appropriate male fashion elements: ties, pants ...

Caroline Evans, fashion history professor at Central Saint Martins in London remembers a stamp that defines a good part of Chanel's artistic career: “In a photo of 1907 or 1908- written in the exhibition catalog- it is seen withA chic and sports attire at the same time, dressed in a man coat and tie and a canotier hat.Everything in its appearance distinguishes it from the other spectators (which appear in the photo), with their hats full of ornaments and very ornate dresses ”.Chanel- Arzalluz adds in that sense- goes from copying other designs to create dresses interpreting, in a female key, the comfort, functionality, sobriety and elegance of men's clothes ”.

At the beginning of the 20th century, and except for Paul Poiret, the clients trusted more in the dressmakers, they were going to better understand their body, modeling it.They didn't trust them "

“At the beginning of the 20th century, and with the exception of Paul Poiret, the seamstress who really frees the woman from the corset, it is the women who dominate.It is logical: the clients consisted more in the dressmaker because they were going to better understand their body, model it.They did not trust men as modist.Even Balenciaga himself had a hard time imposed in that regard ”.Lola Lola Hanar, researcher specialized in fashion and biographer of Ana de Pombo, Santander aristocrat, personal secretary of Coco Chanel in the thirties.

Coco and surroundings

Pombo, Claverie, Del Castillo

The Callot sisters were fashion referents in the 1910.Jeanne Paquin triumphed in the twenty.In the thirties, Elsa Schiaparelli, Madeleine Vionnet and Augusta Bernard.Vionnet was sewing head with the callot and worked with Paquin, who in turn was a student of Maggy Rouff, a designer who worked until the sixties when the big names of fashion were already men.Many of the women who triumphed at the beginning of the 20th century have remained in the margins of oblivion despite their genius.Also other figures that worked with Coco Chanel.Missia SERT, intimate friend.Or Santander Ana de Pombo, who was her personal secretary for six years.His biographer, Lola hawk, remembers that they would have been for more years of not being for the bad relationship that Paul Iribe, lover of the designer, had with Pombo.This would end up working for Paquin, like Lou Claverie, a key figure whose origin (Basque-French or Basque-Spanish) differs according to the sources.Apart chapter is Antonio del Castillo.Carrera Diplomat, Adiseñar began for Paquin in 1949, but also for Lanvin, Chanel, Robert Piguet (Dior and Givenchy's master) and Elizabeth Arden in New York.Del Castillo is, if the files do not deceive, the only Spanish who has won a Broadway Tony and a Hollywood Oscar.

What differentiates Chanel from other colleagues is that, with his humble origin, he knew how to surround people that was the opposite.What merit did Ana de Pombo had in that regard?“Ana has to do like other aristocrats who hired Chanel, she was her the source of information from her to learn from the great world she did not belong to.Chanel has merit, huh?- Lola's hawks affirms- because in a century she so elitist and class breastfeed.

A press cut: "We could say that Chanel does not vary his line, or just, and that is what just constitutes his strength".It is an article from Vogue magazine on April 1, ... 1921.The validity, 99 years later, is a fact.The cut is mentioned by Véronique Belloir, the curator of the nineteenth -century collection of the Galliera who in all these months of preparation has submerged in the dressmaker's workshop, has studied lines, has caressed velvet and wool and has even been punctured, withoutwant.

Vogue's verdict

"We could say that Chanel does not vary his line, or just, and that is what just constitutes his strength," says Vogue's article published on April 1, 1921

Sandra Courtine and Dominique Brard sign the scenery of the Galliera Reopening Exhibition, that is, the beauty that is shown is well presented and can be admired from all angles.To do this, they recognize, they have been inspired by some elements that Chanel had on his floor of the Rue Cambon: "I liked the triptychs, the sharp lines, the fragments of mirrors, the black lacquered wood"...Their mission was that the creations of the dressmaker look while they wanted to publicize the new rooms of the museum.

One of them has dedicated itself exclusively to honor the history of the most famous perfume in the world.That was the one he liked and the 5 was his last name, Marilyn Monroe's favorite dress."The 5 was Chanel's fetish number, and, it seems that it was the fifth test that the perfumer presented him and the one he liked," recalls Lola Hajarrón.

No one agrees on the exact origin of the maison part of the Perfume Excellence, nor on the origin of the coconut nickname.Gabrielle Chanel not only dressed and dressed as angels to women many decades before women went to the gym.It was also wrapped with a mantle (or several) of mystery.Smoke curtains.

Biographical shadows

There is little talk about black legends, such as their anti -Semitism or their closeness to the Nazis, they make it more complex and human no matter how divine their legacy is

In his writing for the exhibition, Arzalluz lists those riddles: "Those of their origin, their relations with the art world, their sentimental relations, and their behavior during World War II" in which, according to the work of reputable researchers,Chanel was an anti -Semitic and frequented Nazi circles in France.Surprise or not, it was "rescued" from prison or worse destiny for the intervention of Winston Churchill himself.But little about the black legends of Gabrielle Chanel is spoken, they are not what weighs the most in his legacy, but they make it more complex and human by very divine that they were, they are, their creations.