Coco Chanel

Paper Summary:

The paper explores how Chanel impacted the feminist movement in several different ways. The paper explains that Chanel impacted the feminist movement through her design, through her personal life and as a business woman. The paper explains how her fashion appropriated male styles for the use of women, how she was involved in a series of high-profile love affairs with both men and women and how she created a couture house that survives and thrives to this day. While she may not have seen herself as a feminist, Chanel was able to inspire thousands of women to live outside of society's expectations for women, which is the feminist ideal.

From the Paper:

"As a fashion designer, Chanel's most overtly feminist action may have been her appropriation of men's clothing and men's styles for the use of women. While they styles were revolutionary, even more revolutionary may have been the reasoning behind the choices. "One can see how her style evolved out of necessity and defiance. She couldn't afford the fashionable clothes of the period- so she rejected them and made her own, using, say, the sports jackets and ties that were everyday male attire around the racetrack, where she was climbing her first social ladders." (Sischy, 1). Many of her designs involved, not only men's clothing, but often evoked the feeling of men's undergarments, giving an overt sexuality and power to the clothing that had previously been absent in women's fashion."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Collett, Janelle. "Remember the Ladies." Feminist.com. 2002. Feminist.com. 6 Mar. 2006<http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/remember/rtl10.htm>.
• Joseph, Aime. "Coco Chanel: Innovator and Icon." CoolOldStuff.com. 2004. Cool Old Stuff.6 Mar. 2006 http://www.coololdstuff.com/coco.html
• Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Coco Chanel." Women's History. 2006. About.com. 6 Mar. 2006<http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_chanel_coco.htm>.
• Sischy, Ingrid. "Coco Chanel." Time.com. 1998. Time Inc. 6 Mar. 2006<http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/chanel.html>.
• Wikipedia. "Coco Chanel." Wikipedia. 2006. Wiki Media. 6 Mar. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel>.

More papers on Coco Chanel:

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• Essay # 38388 : "Couple in a Cage" by Coco Fusco and Paula Heredia"

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