Her name is synonymous with fashion, and she may be the most influential woman in the field ever, but Coco Chanel was first a young girl named Gabrielle who lived in an orphanage and dreamed of achieving fame and fortune on the Parisian stage.
She certainly was able to cross “fame” and “fortune” off her to-do list, but her life didn’t turn out the way she had planned – she never married or had children — and the gorgeous “Coco Before Chanel” shows a side of the fashionista most people have never seen.
Audrey Tautou is riveting as the headstrong Chanel, and the period details of both the clothing and the settings are meticulous. It’s fascinating to watch Chanel rip apart her lovers’ suits and ties to form her own wardrobe, which was stark in its simplicity, and a sharp contrast to the frothy, embellished dresses of the time. She looks more sophisticated running through the house in a pair of clean-lined pajamas than the women around her do, heavily corseted and adorned with lace, feathers and flowers.
To say Chanel was ahead of her time is an understatement, and the movie shows that we have her to thank for getting us out of corsets, teaching us that “only black shows off the eyes” and proving that women can run empires.
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