Embrace Your Naturalness and Wear It
“Maurice’s folks won’t meet me: Not over their dead bodies,” said Adrienne.
To which her sister Coco replies “So let them die.”
Coco Before Chanel paints a vivid portrait of its heroine. French actress Audrey Tautou gives Coco Chanel a mysterious and intriguing edge. Through Tautou’s eyes, Coco is introverted yet daring, determined yet meek, comfortable in her own skin/designs yet edgy inside, cool and yet tender. She knows what she wants in life and she manages to remain focused despite her contradictory feelings. It seems as if Coco ’s great ability to stay focused in the present moment enables her to find balance between her extremes. Despite the many challenges she faces, she is always able to return to the center of her being; to the essence of Coco by following the flow of her feelings.
We could all take a few good lessons from this portrayal of Coco Chanel. We need to allow ourselves to feel that tug and pull of our many emotions. And we need to allow them to simply “be” within us as we remain focused in the present moment. Eventually, the flow of our feelings will gently drop us off in the center of our very being: In the essential spot where we know who we are and so return to peace and contentment with ourselves and our lives.
Chanel is portrayed as allowing herself to be vulnerable. She has a unique sense of comfort and fashion that takes her to the edge of the mainstream and beyond. She is extremely resourceful and understands her talents as a tailor and her unique artistic abilities as a fashion designer. All of the clothing she creates for herself as a young woman is loose and free-flowing. She keeps everything simple and minimal. All of her sense of being and thus fashion is totally contrary to the rigid, corset-tight, frilly, feather and jewel adornment of the average society woman of her day. Essentially, she stands out like a mystery to be solved. And she doesn’t care that many upper-crust women see her as odd, almost boyish. She knows she’s good enough, as good as anybody of any social class, and she isn’t about to change to please anyone.
Initially, the only bridge between herself and other women is her hat design. The simple elegance of her hats speaks to the inner-spirit of every woman who longs to be free of the baubles and beads; and who longs to simply be her true self as opposed to being an oversized lacy doll for men to fawn over.
Despite her somewhat odd uniqueness, Coco ’s ability to live closely united to her inner-self—to be who she is despite the social constraints of her day-- makes her intriguing to people of all social classes. The doors of the upper-class open despite the fact that Coco is the daughter of a working class father who abandoned her after the death of her mother. The nobility are fascinated by her naturalness, and embrace it because they, too, long so much to be their natural selves. And don’t we all? Embrace the naturalness within you and wear it like Coco Chanel did.
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