Chanel is celebrating founder Gabrielle Chanel’s rebel spirit this year with a new short film called “Gabrielle, A Rebel at Heart,” which is part of the French house’s film series “Inside Chanel.” The 18th installment in the film series focuses on Gabrielle Chanel’s creative strong spirit and opens with her famous quote, “I decided who I wanted to be and that is who I am”… a notion that also rings true for Karl Lagerfeld. The film explores the themes of rebellion, freedom, and passion.
Gabrielle Chanel was, of course, one of the great feminists of her time. She transformed women’s fashion with her casual chic approach to dressing, which was in contrast to the overdressed doll-like dress of the time. Preferring the simplicity of a black dress or a tweed suit to the more constricting fashions of the time, Gabrielle Chanel also made shorter hair en vogue as well as taking up typically male passions of the time like horseback riding. “She threw out a life jacket, as it were, to women not once but twice, during two distinct periods decades apart: the 1920s and the ’50s,” wrote the late Ingrid Sischy for a 1998 article in Time magazine. “She not only appropriated styles, fabrics, and articles of clothing that were worn by men but also, beginning with how she dressed herself, appropriated sports clothes as part of the language of fashion. One can see how her style evolved out of necessity and defiance”
The celebration of Gabrielle’s spirit is a focus for Chanel for 2017, so stay tuned for more inspiration. In the meantime, below are a few of our favorite Gabrielle Chanel quotes!
Life Lessons from Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel
“As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!”
“In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.”
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.”
“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”
“You can be gorgeous at 30, charming at 40, and irresistible for the rest of your life.”
“Fashion is not something that exists in dress only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”
