Reading reflection no. 3

1.     Entrepreneur - Coco Chanel

a.     What surprised me the most was the influence of both of the World Wars on her life and career, particularly the positive impact that the first world war had on her career. In this time, she lived in Paris and her fashion line that she personally curated had gained critical acclaim on an international level.

b.     The thing that I probably admire the most about Coco Chanel is that she opposed the gender norms that were deeply ingrained at the time. The novel opens by saying how women in general at the turn of the century, and poor women in particular, had precise paths that were decided for them. However, Coco sought to pursue her own passions and take risks to attain entrepreneurial fulfillment.

c.     Although she began an iconic line of fashion, she did focus her designs on a particular body type which is something that we still struggle with in our society today. It is noted that Coco primarily designed her products for women with bodies of those who did not work. For women that couldn’t fit into her clothing naturally, she sold corsets at her store as well.

d.     Coco Chanel encountered immense adversity – poverty, sexism, war – it doesn’t get much more intense than that. However, she capitalized on each obstacle and saw how they could pose opportunities that she could capitalize on. Although she grew up in poverty, she worked wherever doing whatever she could so that she could become financially independent. She also didn’t pay mind to the expectations of her as a woman in the early 20^th century.

2.     One of the main competencies I see in Coco Chanel is her adaptability. As a fashion designer, it is almost a given that she has to be adaptable because trends change quickly. However, while conceiving her brand she took advantage of the international situation at hand to produce clothes and products that people wanted following the massive shift in society after WW1.

3.     One of the confusing parts of the biography for me was her connection with Russian socialites and artists. I think that the source of my confusion is only that it seemed to come out of nowhere. Her styles definitely began to get international recognition, especially in the 1920s, but the connection she had to Russian society seemed random.

4.     2 questions I would ask

a.     How often did you think about your design house when you left your work for those 15 years?

b.     How difficult was it for you to begin a ready-to-wear line, both symbolically and practically?

5.     I think Coco Chanel probably had a perspective on hard work that I also relate to. This perspective would be that one must put their full effort into their passions and constantly persevere to attain their goals. Also, this effort should not waver from the individual’s actual passions, and people should be prideful in how they spend their time and only devote it to the things they truly believe in.