Posts with tag coco chanel

In the last month there have been two jewelry collection launches that have knocked our socks off – Kate Spade and Chanel.

We love us some Chanel and are smitten with the idea of a slew of biographies about Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's life. And first up in the series, was the Lifetime biopic titled Coco Chanel. Though the girl playing a young Gabrielle Chanel was believable, all American Shirley McClaine was not. Bummer!

Shirley MacLaine was a delight in the recent Wifetime movie about Coco Chanel. It was amazing how the character's accent transformed, over the course of her life, from Young French Femme to Tough Old Broad Who Isn't Taking $h-- From Anyone, with her ubiquitous Gauloises never smudging her perfect lipstick!

Coco Chanel seems to be a bit of a theme lately. There are movies and books coming out about Mademoiselle's life seemingly every hour, on the hour, and for good reason -- the woman led an incredibly interesting life, wholly deserving of being chronicled. We recently had a chance to review one of the more unique books about Coco Chanel -- Coco Chanel: Three Weeks/1962.

Rather than retell the story of how Chanel became a success, this book is filled with pictures (and a few select phrases) taken when the icon was 79 years old, when Douglas Kirkland (a very young-looking 27-year-old American photographer at the time) had the opportunity to spend three weeks taking pictures of Paris, Chanel fashion, and, of course, Chanel herself.

Oh, Lifetime. It's like you read our minds.

Shirley MacLaine stars as Coco Chanel tonight on Lifetime! Best. Miniseries idea. Ever. Aren't you glad you read StyleList on Saturdays? Set your Tivos. This is gonna be awesome on an Ice Capades scale. We have triple-salchow hopes.

Tiffany wrote about it way back in March, and the day has finally arrived. 8pm ET/PT. This is either going to be amazing, disastrous, or BOLTH. Our knees are bouncing excitedly under our desks.

A little background information:

Stuck on what to get dad for Father's Day? For almost $18 grand, you can get your dad that Chanel fly fishing rod that he's always dreamed of. OK, we doubt that anybody's father has been dropping hints about a set of Chanel lures in a quilted black case adorned with the famous double 'C' logo. In fact, we kinda doubt that most anglers would be caught dead with a Chanel rod -- but if Armani can make roller skates, then I guess Chanel can make an $18,000 fishing rod. But why?

Needless to say, we don't think these rods will be flying off the rack at your local Bass Pro Shop. Heck, we seriously doubt any of these babies will ever see the water. So why even bother? Apparently, Coco Chanel was actually a big time angler. During the 20's, while she lived at the Ritz, Coco used to fly fish with the Duke of Westminster. Guess that explains it, sort of. Still, we doubt that there's a big market for outrageously fashionable fishing gear.

[via Jezebel]

Last month, we tipped Audrey Tautou to play Chanel in a new biopic of the French designer. Now we can confirm the rumors are true.

Tautou will play Chanel in a new movie to be called Coco avant Chanel (which means "Coco before Chanel" and which will focus on Coco's formative years, before she became known for her classic sense of style and her wonderful taste in smells). We didn't know much about the fashion legend's early life, but according to Variety, she learned to sew during her time in a Catholic orphanage after the death of her parents, and earned the nickname Coco after performing as a cabaret dancer - there's some perfect biopic material, right there.

Variety also reports that Tautou was (understandably, being the most famous hip and beautiful young Frenchwoman in Hollywood) the only choice for the role.

Last year, Variety reported that Shirley MacLaine would be playing Coco Chanel in an upcoming biopic that would be airing on LifetimeTV this fall. The miniseries will chronicle Chanel's later years returning to Paris, after exiling herself in Germany and Switzerland during World War II.

Well, W magazine has obtained the first picture of Shirley MacLaine as Mademoiselle Coco Chanel. In the photo, Shirley has temporarily hidden her fire engine red locks under a brunette wig and wears the iconic pearls and tweed suit that Coco made fashionable in the 20s.

According to the fashion magazine, MacLaine took the role because of some advice an old friend once gave her -- the one and only Audrey Hepburn: "When we worked together, she said to me, 'You should think about doing Coco Chanel when you're older,'" recalls MacLaine. "That was in my 20s. I said, 'You should do Coco Chanel.' She said, 'No. You.' I've thought about it all that time, and then this came up. I couldn't believe it."

Meanwhile, the French actress Audrey Tautou is playing Coco in an upcoming Chanel feature-length film.

The handbag didn't become an accessory for women until the early 1900's (hard to believe huh). Prior to that only men carried handbags, and women had to ask for her belongings when she needed them. Once women began heading out on their own they need their own bags. So a handbag, something that may seem silly to some, is actually a symbol of independence for women.

In 1955, Coco Chanel's quilted handbag with a chain shoulder strap made its debut, and took the fashion world by storm. Since then the quilted handbag (and everything else Chanel touched) has become a fashion classic. Whether you carry the Chanel version, which was sewn with her "secret" quilting pattern, or another designer label – you are sure to look classic and put together.

Today Marc Jacobs has dominated the black quilted bag market with his now famous "Stam bag." Buying a designer quilted handbag will cost you quite a pretty penny but you can be sure that it will always be in style, and you can pass it down to the next generation.

When I think of Chanel I can't help but get a little emotional. I mean its Chanel people!

Coco Chanel revolutionized the fashion industry and the way women thought about clothing. Before Chanel women were binding themselves in uncomfortable corsets and were dragging pounds of fabric behind them in extravagant dresses. Coco Chanel took women out of their corsets and into cardigans, suits, and little black dresses.

One of her more famous designs is the "Chanel suit" which is composed of classic tweed (Coco Chanel first introduced us to classic tweed) knee length skirt and boxy jacket, with black trim and gold buttons. This look was the uniform of elite high society women all over the world. That particular look made the label "Chanel" synonymous with wealth and class – something that never goes out of style.

The Chanel suit is and always will be in style for women of all generations. No other suit can make a statement of classic beauty, elegance, money, and power. Many have mimicked the Chanel suit but there is only one Chanel.

French actress Audrey Tautou has signed on to play the role of Coco Chanel in a upcoming film about the visionary designer. The as-of-yet-unnamed film was announced earlier this week at the Cannes film festival. Directed by Anne Fontaine, the feature film will chronicle the early life and young adulthood of the celebrated fashion house matriarch.

Obviously, this is a great role for Tautou, and I'm sure she'll knock it out of the park. But I have to wonder if Audrey is getting a little sick of playing the same role in all of her films. Wide-eyed, precocious French gamine has to get old after a while.

I am of the firm belief that no matter the occasion, no matter the recipient, a book is always an awesome gift. Wedding? Give the couple a cookbook to start their happy home together. Birthday? Get him or her books by a favorite author.

Since it's the holidays and we're shopping for six of your very stylish best friends, there are a few good books that will work for them. Some are written by style icons (Victoria Beckham's That Extra Half Inch), some cover fashion's history, some are written about style icons (The World of Coco Chanel), some that cover the history of fashion, and some that are just pretty to look at. Pretty to look at? Yes, we know all about that.

That's right. The little black dress (or LBD, as we all seem to like to call it) is no longer just an item of clothing.

Little Black Dress is a charity event that raises money while celebrating the universal wardrobe essential. Starting in 2002, the event is held every year in a different location, and this year, in fact, tomorrow night, the Little Black Dress will be in Los Angeles, highlighting creations by LA designers like Puella, Jennifer Nicholson and Louis Verdad It's a special event since the gala, to be filled with fashion icons, celebrities, and designers, will commemorate the 80th anniversary of Coco Chanel's little black dress, and displaying Audrey Hepburn's Givenchy black dress from Breakfast at Tiffany's

The event costs $200 and will benefit the Pediatric Epilepsy Project. The location is revealed once a guest RSVPs. (Sounds like an underground rave).

The next Little Black Dress event will be in Bagkok, Thailand, in August 2007.

Back in the Victorian era, women worshiped pale skin. Now, 100 years later, women spend millions of dollars each year trying to look sun-kissed and tanned, either by natural or artificial means.

I've often wondered when and why our relationship to the sun changed. Was it the leisure culture of the 1950s? Was it the California-ization of America -- groups like the Beach Boys, and the aesthetic of the Gidget films?

At least according to a BBC report, our we owe our modern preoccupation with suntans to Coco Chanel. In 1923, while cruising around the French Riviera, Chanel accidentally got a sunburn. The sunburn faded into a tan, and the tan started a revolution.

Owning a Chanel suit is the dream of every aspiring fashionista. But owning a Chanel outfit actually worn by the divine Coco? Now that's almost too much fashion glory for one woman to handle! Should you have an extra £2,300 ($4,362) burning a hole in your pocket, an original Coco-owned Chanel dress can be yours! A black bouclé wool dress, which was originally auctioned off as part of Coco Chanel's personal estate in December 1978 at Christie's, somehow found its way to the posh vintage clothing store One in London. This particular dress was actually worn by Coco in a photograph that was used for the cover of one of her autobiographies, so you know it's the real deal.

[Via Vogue.co.uk]