FROM FASHION TO THE BIG SCREEN: CHANEL’S JACKET

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Margherita Nannuzzi

“Among the things that will never go out of fashion there are jeans, white shirt and Chanel’s jacket». These are Karl Lagerfeld’s words, who will present December the 1^st a short film entitled Reincarnation, that reveals the anecdote behind the history of the famous Chanel’s jacket: in 1954 the French stylist was particularly impressed by the jacket worn by an usher in a Salzburg’s Hotel. According to the shape of that jacket, Chanel designed a timeless piece of women’s fashion.

Exactly in the early 1950s, when fashion and women returned to dream after the great straits of World War II and while Hollywood was offering sexy beauties from tight-fitting clothes like Marilyn, Coco Chanel, instead, preferred to create simple models and make women’s clothing more functional, without ever sacrificing femininity and elegance.

The male cut tweed jacket characterized by straight line, that Chanel combines almost always with a knee-length skirt, is still very imitated and loved whether on the catwalks or in department stores. Many fashion houses reproduce the model almost every year: just look at Pinko, Elisabetta Franchi, Denny Rose and even Zara’s catalogues, just to list some of the most affordable brand!

The trend of fashion tends to be cyclical, which means that its deepest essence is change, speed, transformation; but those items of fashion like Chanel’s jacket seem to be crystallized by time, because the same pattern of jacket is revived every year with just a few small variations.

One of the last tributes to the Chanel’s jacket is Woody Allen’s one in the movie Blue Jasmine (2013). The white wool Chanel’s jacket and the Hermes bag, worn in many scenes of the movie, symbolize for the female character, heavily exhausted and indebted due to the dirty business of her husband, the only connection with the marvelous life she led in the high society.