very true. and on top of that you have to remember this is all to pay $10k for a purse that, in reality, does the exact same thing as a $1 bag.Or maybe the entire responsibly lies in Chanel’s approach to their own products. We shouldn’t ever have a thread like this. Just think about it. What we are all saying. This is ridiculous. Sane people just walk away & don’t have time for all these shenanigans. Just shows our tolerance has been lowered to a level below reasonable. Our expectations of them mediocre on a good day. Kind of shocking really. Their psychological warfare is top notch
Chanel’s Rise & STALL: Defects, Difficulties & Deflection (formerly the 19 tote saga thread)
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The thing id like to get to the bottom of is I can understand a higher price point for something created by artisans who are paid a premium rate - that seems fair- but Chanel is very shady about where a lot of these items are made.
There’s all those rumours about the Italian sweatshops or things being made in Chinese factories with very little care for their workers and just 1% finished in France.
I’d like to see a lot more transparency. Even a lower price point bag like Bally has more info about their supply chain. Or for a few dollars more now you can get Hermes who are very transparent about their craftsmen and process.
There’s all those rumours about the Italian sweatshops or things being made in Chinese factories with very little care for their workers and just 1% finished in France.
I’d like to see a lot more transparency. Even a lower price point bag like Bally has more info about their supply chain. Or for a few dollars more now you can get Hermes who are very transparent about their craftsmen and process.
Chanel maintain's their value is the story of Coco Chanel. Thats what the whole brand is built on. I can't remember a time where I heard about quality or wonderful working conditions for employees to justify the price. All one needs to do is google luxury items to find out how pricing is structured for these things.
I don’t think that they promote the story of Coco at all. She was a Nazi and was banished from France. That’s how the Wertheimers gained control of Chanel to begin with.
What’s promoted is the status of Chanel but definitely not the story of Coco.
I'm not defending her Nazi adjancency, but while it may be true that the French held a grudge against her for that, she lived in post-war Paris at The Ritz until the day she died and her fashions were regularly featured on the covers of French celeb and fashion mags from the 60s onward. She wasn't banished from France and the Wertheimers gained control AFTER her death because she made a deal with them to cede all her interest in the company and perfumes in exchange for them paying all her expenses during her lifetime, because she had no heirs of her own and her sister's kids weren't interested in the business.
I believe the Wertheimers had control of her company before her death. They bought her out. She tried to sue them to gain back control, but was unsuccessful. In addition to being in control of her company, they actually came to some kind of agreement that had the Wertheimers funding Chanel’s daily life/living expenses - they even paid her taxes! https://www.jewishinsandiego.org/je...cleansed-chanel-of-its-anti-semitic-nazi-past
Let me clarify. I was addressing the statement made by Gail13 that “Chanel maintain's their value is the story of Coco Chanel”. That’s just not true. They do everything they can not to highlight her story.
You misread my statement about the Wertheimers gaining control. I said it was during the time that she was expelled from France. She lived in Geneva to escape being prosecuted by the French government for being a Nazi. She lived there 10 years.
She sued Pierre Wertheimer to get her couturier back and ran out of money. Ultimately she became what would amount to an employee of Pierre Wertheimer in her own fashion house.
To this day, the Wertheimers, as Pierre was then, venture capitalists. Nothing to do with fashion beyond financial. They use Chanel profits to fund their investments in other sectors.
So I was simply disagreeing that Chanel relies on Coco’s story. They rely on the CC logo which had nothing to do with Coco (other than her initials) as she did not use that logo on her designs.
Exactly. I think we ran through this whole history back further in this thread, didn’t we?
Look, I love Chanel but there’s no point in trying to soften Coco Chanel’s reputation.
In 1939, as soon as WWII broke out, she closed her boutique and ateliers. During the Occupation, she lived at the Ritz of which a part had been requisitioned by the Luftwaffe as its headquarters in Paris. Like many French society people, she mingled with elite Nazis stationed in Paris but unlike them, she did become a spy for the enemy for the duration of the war. In 1945 during the Liberation, she fled France along with other prominent collaborators like the diplomat and writer Paul Morand (who would later writer her biography).
Many prominent French collaborators ended up living in Lausanne where they very much continued their society life without a single care about reconstructing France after WWII.
It’s only after the French government passed the 1953 amnesty law for certain kinds of collaboration with the Nazis did Coco Chanel come back to Paris and open her boutique and atelier in 1954 (with the financial support of the Wertheimers, the very same family she tried to screw over).
And as a reminder, when Coco Chanel started showing haute couture collections in 1954, it was a huge flop for French society ladies, partly because the New Look was all the rage and no one wanted to wear subdued skirt suits in tweed and also partly because Coco Chanel was still more or less an unsavory figure in elite circles because of her collaboration. It’s only the American fashion world that lauded Coco Chanel from the beginning.
Otherwise, it’s well known here in France that Coco Chanel was a very bitter, mean and unpleasant figure towards the end of her life. If I can find it, I’ll put it up, but there’s a French documentary where Coco Chanel’s nephew states that she was the “meanest person” (“la personne la plus méchante”) that you could’ve met - and this is coming from someone who considered Coco Chanel to be his substitue mother!
Otherwise, it’s well known here in France that Coco Chanel was a very bitter, mean and unpleasant figure towards the end of her life. If I can find it, I’ll put it up, but there’s a French documentary where Coco Chanel’s nephew states that she was the “meanest person” (“la personne la plus méchante”) that you could’ve met - and this is coming from someone who considered Coco Chanel to be his substitue mother!
I remember that the moderators don’t allow for foreign language videos/posts, only in English? Here is a screenshot of a letter from André Palasse, Coco Chanel’s nephew. It’s from a documentary on Coco Chanel’s last days and succession. In English, it translates roughly to:
“Try to remember what I have told you… The world has never produced a woman as profoundly mean than the one (Coco Chanel) who was a mother to me for the past 60 years. She is dead, may God keep her soul, unless it’s the other one who has her now.”
It’s honestly even worse than I remembered it.
Other people who interviewed Coco Chanel before her death had very similar things to say. A very famous French author, Françoise Sagan, even wrote that she was a “terribly cruel and antisemitic woman.”
Does the latter part of Coco’s life invalidate her earlier achievements as an avant-garde seamstress? No, she truly did revolutionize women’s fashion during the 1920s and 1930s. But that doesn’t also mean that she wasn’t a terrible person. So many things can be true at the same time, revealing how complex human beings are.
In any case, I’ve said this before, today’s Chanel is much more Karl Lagerfeld’s artistic legacy than it is Coco’s. Sure, several key elements of Coco’s signature style have been kept - tweed, little black dress, the classic jacket, the 2.55 - but it’s really Karl Lagerfeld who has transformed them into what we associate with Chanel as a fashion house today. Karl Lagerfeld has said many times before that Coco Chanel would’ve hated his own creations.
And again, if it’s reassuring to anyone, the Wertheimers still own Chanel. All the money goes to the same family that Coco had tried to betray before.
“Try to remember what I have told you… The world has never produced a woman as profoundly mean than the one (Coco Chanel) who was a mother to me for the past 60 years. She is dead, may God keep her soul, unless it’s the other one who has her now.”
It’s honestly even worse than I remembered it.
Other people who interviewed Coco Chanel before her death had very similar things to say. A very famous French author, Françoise Sagan, even wrote that she was a “terribly cruel and antisemitic woman.”
Does the latter part of Coco’s life invalidate her earlier achievements as an avant-garde seamstress? No, she truly did revolutionize women’s fashion during the 1920s and 1930s. But that doesn’t also mean that she wasn’t a terrible person. So many things can be true at the same time, revealing how complex human beings are.
In any case, I’ve said this before, today’s Chanel is much more Karl Lagerfeld’s artistic legacy than it is Coco’s. Sure, several key elements of Coco’s signature style have been kept - tweed, little black dress, the classic jacket, the 2.55 - but it’s really Karl Lagerfeld who has transformed them into what we associate with Chanel as a fashion house today. Karl Lagerfeld has said many times before that Coco Chanel would’ve hated his own creations.
And again, if it’s reassuring to anyone, the Wertheimers still own Chanel. All the money goes to the same family that Coco had tried to betray before.
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Chanel manage to avoid any mention of her in negative terms of course. Take a look at Chanel.com to see how she is defined. A book that looks interesting which I have not read other than excerpts is "Sleeping with the Enemy; Coco Chanel's Secret War." Chanel's code name as she went on missions around Europe to recruit new agents for the Third Reich, was "Westminister."
My point is that Chanel loves to dwell on her orphanage days and the inspirations from which the collections are named and rightly so. But Karl was the genius behind most of made Chanel desirable today. What is Chanel without the CC logo? The Reissue classic flap which is a original Chanel style is worth less than a flap with the CC on it. Why is that? Long time Chanel clients usually love the Reissue for their ease of use and ability to pack, folded up. It's because the CC is all marketing...
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Interestingly enough, the two times I went to look at Chanel merchandise, the sales associates sort of dissuaded me from buying telling me they didn't think the items would hold up to the wear and tear I would put on it.
I was surprised, but appreciated the honesty.
Also was kind of shocked that their bags & wallets aren't going to hold up .
I was surprised, but appreciated the honesty.
Also was kind of shocked that their bags & wallets aren't going to hold up .