Mademoiselle
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58 “a bouquet of abstract flowers”: According to Jacques Polge—currently the master perfumer or “nose” for the Maison Chanel, “[Chanel Number 5]’s revolution in perfume is comparable to that of abstract art in painting.” Quoted in François Ternon, Histoire du numéro 5 de Chanel (Paris: Editions Normant, 2009), 91.
59 the scent of Arctic snow: The remark comes from Beaux’s protégé, perfumer Constantin Weriguine. Quoted in Mazzeo, 65.
60 jasmine petals were impossibly expensive: Quoted in Madsen, 134.
61 romantic or “Oriental” fantasies: Madsen, 134.
62 “Women tend to wear”: Quoted in Delay, 112.
63 it was her lucky number: The number “5” might also have been selected to acknowledge that the formula represented Beaux’s fifth attempt at mixing the fragrance.
64 Boy Capel’s cologne flasks: Lisa Chaney reviews the possible theories of the bottle’s origins, but does not consider Dmitri as a source. Chaney, 190.
65 imitation of the vodka flasks: This theory is advanced by journalist Patrick Cousteau in “Ce n’est pas dans le film,” Minute, April 29, 2009. And the square-shaped doodles that fill the margins of Dmitri’s diaries for this period indeed suggest the bottle’s silhouette.
66 “The effect was amazing”: Galante, 75.
67 its sales secured Chanel’s fortune: Madsen, 130.
68 Keen businessmen, they understood: Mazzeo, 95ff. Chaney, 227–30. Phyllis Berman and Zina Sawaya, “The Billionaires Behind Chanel,” Forbes, April 3, 1989: 104–8.
69 Labels in her couture garments: I thank Bill DeGregorio of the Museum of the City of New York for pointing out the couture labels on vintage Chanels and explaining their evolution.
70 conferred its special magic: They became what fashion writer Lucien François called “those fetish-objects that contain within them sorcery.” Lucien François, Comment un nom devient une griffe (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), 35.
71 “Embroidering my initials”: Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, 29–30.
72 lurking in the stained-glass windows: Picardie, 34.
73 life of Chanel’s greatest love: Chaney, 191.
74 the margins of his diaries: Dmitri, Private Papers, marginalia.
75 its White Russian supporters: By 1920, Dmitri had been well ensconced among the ultra-right-wing Germans who supported overturning the Bolshevik Revolution. He cultivated friendships with the likes of White Russian generals Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel and Vasili Biskupsky, both of whom collaborated closely with Hitler. Dmitri writes of these alliances in his diaries: “It seems that the most serious political organization of a strictly party-related nature is the group of Markov II, the famous leader of the far right. I spoke with him, of course, and he made quite a good impression on me.” Dmitri Diaries, March 15, 1921, 25.1, 17–20.
Dmitri’s diaries attest to visits to Berlin in the early 1920s, beginning at least in March 1921. He was drawn to early fascism and eventually (several years after he and Chanel parted) became a member of the Mladorossi, or the Union of Young Russians, a group of expatriate Russians who “flirted with fascism,” in the words of Marina Gorboff, La Russie fantôme: l’émigration russe de 1920 à 1950 (Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions L’Age d’Homme), 160–61. He even received an invitation from Hitler to lead a group of exiled Russian aristocrats to fight with the German army against the Bolsheviks. He declined, claiming he could not fight his compatriots, even these. For more on Biskupsky, see Walter Laqueur, Russia and Germany (1965; repr., New York: Transaction Books, 1990). Laqueur describes Biskupsky as a manipulator of the Russian monarchists, “playing one Grand Duke against another in their ambitions for the throne,” using them to gain allies in his own quest for power. Laqueur, 120–21. But Dmitri’s experience of Nazism and its symbols likely dates to an earlier period in his life. The budding National Socialist Party and White Russians had long been ideological bedfellows.
76 highly attractive, demotic elitism: In explaining the function of the swastika symbol, psychologist Erik Erikson wrote, “The ceremonial permits a group to behave in a symbolically ornamental way so that it seems to present an ordered universe; each particle achieves an identity by its mere interdependence with all the others.” Erik Erikson, Young Man Luther (1962; repr., New York: Norton, 1993), 186, quoted in George Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars Through the Third Reich (New York: Howard Fertig, 1975), 12.
77 a benighted, unaesthetic race: Dmitri revealed the kind of offhand anti-Semitism that considers Jews unaesthetic in his diary entry of June 12, 1920: “In the evening I went to a housewarming celebration at the Iakovlevs. It was quite entertaining, I must say. Especially the people. There were a large number of Jews with the most surprising physiognomies.” Dmitri Diaries, June 12, 1920, vol 19.1, 153.
78 “Mother Russia no longer exists”: Dmitri Diaries, May 4, 1920, vol. 19.1, 8.
79 reviled orphans of history: Prince Felix Youssoupoff, closest companion of Dmitri’s youth, believed in the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories commonly circulating among Russian aristocrats and promulgated in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the 1903 anonymous text first published in Russian and likely the work of Pyotr Rachov-sky. The Protocols, later a key text for Hitler, claimed to uncover a secret Jewish plot to achieve global domination. Felix believed, for example, that Rasputin was in the secret pay of a group of Jewish conspirators. Some scholars suggest that Rasputin tried to fight the violence perpetrated against Jews in Russia, and that his advocacy for oppressed minorities in general drew the hostility that led eventually to his assassination. See, for example, Brian Moynahan, Rasputin: The Saint Who Sinned (New York: Random House, 1997), 261ff; and the self-published Delin Colón, Rasputin and the Jews: A Reversal of History (CreateSpace, 2011).
5. MY HEART IS IN MY POCKET: COCO AND PIERRE REVERDY
1 “A Step Away from Them”: Accessed at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-step-away-from-them/.
2 was likely Reverdy’s lover: Galante, 110.
3 “I have always felt this”: Pablo Neruda likened Reverdy’s poems to “a vein of quartz.” Hungarian photographer Brassaï thought they displayed “the transparency … and the purity of crystal.” Pierre Reverdy to Jean Rousselot, May 16, 1951, quoted in Jean Rousselot, “Pierre Reverdy,” in Pierre Reverdy (Paris: Editions Seghers, 1951), 15.
4 rich tactility resembling a sculptor’s: Brassaï, “Reverdy dans son Labyrinthe,” 159–268; Pablo Neruda, “Je ne dirai jamais,” in “Pierre Reverdy 1889–1960,” special issue of Mercure de France, no. 1181, January 1962, 113–14.
5 troops fired on the crowds: Laura Levine Frader, Peasants and Protest: Agricultural Works, Politics, and Unions in the Aude, 1850–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 139–45.
6 He became a lifelong socialist: “He seemed fundamentally shattered by life,” wrote Misia Sert about her early impressions of Pierre. Misia Sert, Misia and the Muses: The Memoirs of Misia Sert, trans. Moura Budberg (1952; repr., New York: John Day, 1953), 188.
7 premature death of his father: Quoted in Rousselot, 8.
8 twelve collections of poems: Nord-Sud featured Reverdy’s work, as well as pieces by many of his cubist and surrealist associates, including Tristan Tzara and Louis Aragon. Adrienne Monnier, the esteemed French poet and translator, patron of modernists, and famed companion of Sylvia Beach, dubbed Nord-Sud “evidence of a serious and coherent mind.” Quoted in Rousselot, 36.
9 “Between Mademoiselle and the poet”: Maurice Sachs, quoted in Jean-Michel Belle, Les Folles années de Maurice Sachs (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1979), 85.
10 “What encumbers me”: Quoted in Benjamin Péret, “Pierre Reverdy m’a dit …” pp. 227–233, in Pierre Reverdy, Nord Sud: Self defence et autres ecrits sur l’art et la poésie (Paris: Flammarion, 1975), 228. Originally published in Le Journal littéraire, October 18, 1924.
11 “Life in society”: Reverdy
, “Le livre de mon bord,” 645–806, in Pierre Reverdy, Oeuvres complètes, tome II (Paris: Flammarion, 2010), 791.
12 “I employed society people”: Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, 157.
13 “He was … severe”: Delay, 244.
14 adopting his teenage memories: Chanel spoke to Charles-Roux of Reverdy’s experience of the winegrowers’ crisis. Charles-Roux, 367.
15 “If you write your poems”: Quoted in Haedrich, 115.
16 self-styled “country bumpkin” persona: Recounted in Charles-Roux, 381.
17 Picasso had provided the illustrations: “It is for Reverdy that I have illustrated this book, and with all my heart,” wrote Picasso. I thank the staff of the Conservatoire Chanel for showing me the handwritten inscriptions in Chanel’s books.
18 “Reverdy converted”: Max Jacob and Jean Cocteau, Correspondance 1917–1944, ed. Anne Kimball (Paris: Editions Paris-Mediterranée, 2000), 323.
19 periods in his Montmartre home: “I have grown used to kneeling, it doesn’t tire me,” he wrote. Stanislas Fumet, “Reverdy,” in “Pierre Reverdy 1889–1960,” special issue of Mercure de France, January 1962, 327.
20 the passage of earthly time: Fumet, 327.
21 recalled his surrealist roots: “Reverdy subjected poetry to a surgical paring down,” observed André Malraux in “Les Origines de la poésie cubiste,” in “Pierre Reverdy 1889–1960,” special issue of Mercure de France, January 1962, 27.
22 windows, rooftops, or holes: “Degrees of Spirituality. I don’t feel I am planted in the earth, but neither am I in the stars. Only above the rooftops,” wrote Reverdy, Le livre de mon bord, 173.
23 “The horizon leans down”: Pierre Reverdy, The Roof Slates and Other Poems of Pierre Reverdy, trans. Mary Ann Caws and Patricia Terry (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981), 47.
24 as a lay associate: Reverdy, Le Livre de mon bord. Reverdy explained his choice of Solesmes in a letter to a friend, French writer Louis Thomas:
For many years, I knew Sarthe [the district where Solesmes is located] and made frequent trips there to a farm isolated from the world by profound poverty and bad roads. One day, a friend wrote to me about Solesmes, where he had gone on retreat, about his love of the chanting, of the liturgy, of the services. I went to spend a week there in the village. I went back, and I stayed. I live in retreat. I work the land, I grow vegetables, I raise Siberian rabbits that are as beautiful as Christmas toys. I harvest miraculous melons. I try, finally, to live in the healthiest way possible, the simplest way, and the most logical too, in accordance with the doctrine to which I have converted.
Louis Thomas, quoted in Jean-Baptiste Para, “Les propos de Reverdy recueillis,” Europe, no. 777–78 (1928), reprinted in Pierre Reverdy (Paris: Cultures Frances, 2006), 64.
25 “You are a good fairy”: Quoted in Sert, 191.
26 “horrific little village”: Quoted in Rousselot, 22.
27 “I will come see you”: Quoted in Haedrich, 116.
28 “Dear and admirable Coco”: Quoted in Charles-Roux, 367.
29 “I add a word to these”:
J’ajoute un mot à ces mots si durs à relire.
Car ce qui est écrit n’est rien
Sauf ce qu’on n’a pas su dire
D’un Coeur qui vous aime si bien.
Charles-Roux, 371.
30 “Until her final years”: Quoted in Charles-Roux, 369.
31 Henriette and his monastic world: Jean-Baptiste Para writes, “Reverdy, nauseated by his own frivolity, would feel an overwhelming desire to flee and return to Solesmes.” Para, 65.
32 château Chanel had bought for them: Fiemeyer and Palasse-Labrunie, Intimate Chanel, 35.
33 as a Hollywood costume designer: Delay, 146.
34 “Pierre let himself be strangely seduced”: Fumet, 316.
35 misguided in their political convictions: Charles-Roux, 648. See chapter 11 for how Chanel’s and Reverdy’s paths crossed politically at the end of World War II.
36 after one such exchange: Quoted in Haedrich, 114.
37 “Lie if you must”: Chanel, “Collections by Chanel,” McCall’s, June 1968.
38 “True generosity”: “Maximes de Gabrielle Chanel,” Vogue, September 1938, 56.
39 “Elegance is not the opposite”: “Interview with Chanel,” McCall’s, November 1, 1965, 122.
40 “a few of Reverdy’s versions”: Pierre Reverdy, Le Gant de crin (Paris: Plon, 1927), 92, 95, 115.
41 “wanted to cede to anecdote”: Edmonde Charles-Roux, “Hommage à Gabrielle Chanel,” Les Lettres Françaises, January 20–26, 1971, 22–23.
6. WOMEN FRIENDS, MIMETIC CONTAGION, AND THE PARISIAN AVANT-GARDE
1 “Those Grand Dukes … looked”: Quoted in Delay, 109.
2 Mona’s husband, Harrison Williams: Paris police records also suggest that Chanel might have had an affair with Alfred Edwards, Misia Sert’s husband between 1905 and 1909.
3 “The worst is the couple”: Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, 166–67.
4 “always knew exactly what”: Lilou Marquand, personal conversation with author, March 2011.
5 pressured to marry Prince Wilhelm: Madsen, 123.
6 Audrey Emery as his bride: Grand Duchess of Russia, Marie, 246–47.
7 from Russian nuns: “My own thoughts were taken up solely with the idea of a paying occupation,” she wrote. Ibid., 158.
8 “catching sight of a woman”: “I remember … a light grey tunic embroidered in different shades of the same colour with dashes of red.… I saw it worn ‘socially’ by a woman lunching at the Ritz … [and] had great difficulty in keeping myself from staring at her.” Ibid., 171.
9 “You were swept off your feet”: Ibid., 159–60.
10 once future queen of Sweden: Marie, a keen observer of people, recognized Chanel’s innate authority, suggesting that Coco’s personality was even more commanding than that of some Russian royalty she’d known: “I had seen people occupying great positions at work … had listened to orders given by people whose birth or position gave them the right to command. I had never yet met with a person whose every word was obeyed and whose authority had been established by her own self out of nothing.” Ibid., 173.
11 “Chanel confused herself”: Irene Maury (former Chanel employee), quoted in Renée Mourgues, “Les Vacances avec Coco Chanel,” La République, October 13, 1994.
12 “Nations have a style”: “Chanel Is 75,” BBC interview, 1959.
13 “Curtain Up, Fashion Appears”: “Le Rideau se lève, la Mode paraît, le point de vue de Vogue,” Vogue, April 1938.
14 “The top of a dress is easy”: Quoted in L. François, “Coco Chanel,” Combat, March 17, 1961.
15 “dress rehearsal[s]”: Grand Duchess of Russia, Marie, 175.
16 many generations of French noblemen: May Birkhead, “Chanel Entertains at Brilliant Fete,” The New York Times, July 5, 1931.
17 “I never discussed prices”: Quoted in Delay, 119.
18 fired Sachs at once: Max Jacob and Jean Cocteau, Correspondance 1917–1944, ed. Anne Kimball (Paris: Editions Paris-Méditerranée, 2000), 575.
19 “It was about the music”: Quoted in Delay, 120.
20 “One should render homage”: Jean Cocteau, “Introduction,” in Sert, v.
21 “A woman,” she declared: Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, 163.
22 “I had only her as a friend”: Ibid., 79.
23 Marcel Proust referred to her: Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, Misia: The Life of Misia Sert (1980; repr., New York: Morrow Quill, 1981), 6. Proust drew inspiration from Misia for two—quite different—characters in A La Recherche du temps perdu: the lovely Princess Yourbeletieff and the overbearing social climber Madame Verdurin.
24 “The tragedy of that day”: Sert, 11–12.
25 clear recognition of the similarity: Haedrich, 21.
26 fell into an intense friendship: “Of all my friends,” wrote Misia, “Serge Diaghilev is certainly the one who came closest to me, and whose
affection was most indispensable to me.… It is very rarely that a friendship that starts on a note of such profound exaltation … continues for more than twenty years, remaining just as intense. This, however, was the case as far as Diaghilev and I were concerned.” Sert, 112–14.
27 for whom Poulenc later composed: Gold and Fizdale, 223.
28 Sorel in her Quai Voltaire: Paul Morand describes this same dinner party in Journal d’un attaché d’ambassade:
Cocteau tells me of an amazing dinner, the other day, at Cécile Sorel’s home. Present were the Berthelots, Sert, Misia, Coco Chanel, who is decidedly becoming a personage, Simone, Lalo, Bailby, Flament, and himself. “Enter conqueror!” exclaimed Sorel and seated Cocteau next to Lalo, who two days before had written in his journal, Le Temps, that “Parade” was “a pretentious niaiserie.” Cocteau sees Cécile run her fingers through her new short hair, fluff it up and say, “It feels so cool like this, it’s so convenient!” After dinner, they decide to cut Simone’s hair with nail scissors. Madame Berthelot refused to sacrifice her own hair. Cocteau claims that this new style is actually devoted to charity and that all the hair cut is gathered by Bailby and resold for the war wounded. “This short style is not at all becoming to Sorel,” he said. “When she had her long hair, from a distance, she looked very ‘grand siècle,’ but now she looks like the elderly Louis XIV without his wig!”
Morand, Journal d’un attaché d’ambassade (1948; repr., Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 277–78.
29 “My attention was immediately drawn”: Quoted in Gold and Fizdale, 197–98.
30 a virtually hypnotized Misia: The coat was most likely a version of the topcoats winning international acclaim for Chanel that year, executed mostly in wool jersey, here enhanced, for her personal use, with velvet. Women’s Wear Daily of February 28, 1916, reported on the trend: “[Chanel’s] jersey topcoat is in great demand. There is nothing smarter than these topcoats. Chanel’s latest models are in 3/4 length, made with flaring skirt section cut separately and joined at the normal waistline. Sleeves are of Raglan type. Fronts fasten at the throat to be turned back forming revers if desired. These coats, like Chanel’s sport coats, are unlined. Chanel always employs fur on wool jersey models.” “Chanel Sport Costumes Increasing in Popularity Daily on Riviera, Women’s Wear Daily, February 28, 1916.