Coco

Last night I watched a film which I probably should of watched long ago. Coco Avant Chanel, where Audrey Tautou portays the queen of fashion in her early life before she created her empire. One thing that caught my was the costumes (big shock there!) Costume designer Catherine Leterrier explained that to dressing Coco was different then dressing any other character that she has dressed before.

“The aim was not to make a movie about the history of fashion. We occasionally had to take liberties with time. To fit in with the storyline, the famous striped mariner’s sweater worn by Chanel in the legendary photos of the 1930s appears earlier in the movie, in the scene where Coco is walking along the beach with Boy and notices the sweaters of the fishermen as they pull in their nets. At another point, as Anne [Anne Fontaine- Film Director] wanted me to imagine how the world-famous Chanel bag originated, I drew a quilted sewing pouch in the shape of the bag, and had it made out of an old, black, flecked cotton canvas that peasants’ clothing used to be made of, as if the young Coco had made it out of a remnant given to her by her aunts.”

This film unexpectedly inspired me to keep going ( I recently found myself in a very unmotivated and uninspired phase, designer's block let's call it) and to not stop. Chanel was not a little rich girl who's father gave her money to hire people to desing, she made her empire, she made her own rules, she made it on her own!