The Value of Dissatisfaction - Deep Glamour: At the Intersection ...

by Randall Shinn

, the Belle Époque , the era just before World War I, was a period of extravagant luxury for European upper classes. So much so that wealthy, aristocratic women spent much of their day changing from one fashionable outfit to another.

When Étienne Balsan invited a young Coco Chanel to come to Royallieu, the chateau where he bred horses, she agreed and became his second mistress. She was ill-suited to the lifestyle of a kept woman, so she spent most of her days at the stables and became known for her ability to work with difficult horses. She amused Balsan and his pals because she was young, and could jump astride the back of a two-year-old stallion and gallop off.

Given this athleticism, you can imagine Chanel was dissatisfied with much of what women were expected to wear. Having been abandoned by her father as a child and raised in an orphanage, Chanel was fiercely determined to eventually be financially independent. Since she had been making her own clothes since she was a teenager, fashion seemed a possible avenue (despite the fact that the field was then dominated by men). Though she thought some women looked fine in Belle Époque fashions, she didn’t feel they suited her personally. Seeing that some men’s fashions offered more freedom of movement, some of her most successful designs were reinterpretations of male clothing, made convenient and stylish for women to wear. As Karbo relates, Chanel legend has it that she borrowed a pullover from her next lover, Boy Capel, while walking at the beach. Finding it inconvenient to put on, she took out a pair of scissors and cut the pullover up the front. And thus the basic concept of the cardigan was born. 

Chanel demonstrated that same sense of style and practicality in creating pant suits, and suits with skirts. Marlene Dietrich is shown at left wearing a Chanel pants suit designed in 1933. You can find Bill Eppridge’s well-known 1966 photo of some famous women wearing Chanel suits here .

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