The Allure of Chanel

The tents in Bryant Park. 9:45 PM. Photo: JH.

September 16, 2009. Yesterday was a beautiful day in New York; sunny and warm.

I had lunch at Michael’s with an old friend. Afterwards I walked her up Fifth Avenue into the Sixties, and then walked up Madison to 79th.

Crossing East 63rd Street from Fifth to Madison Avenue. Many of the block's houses were up at the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century. Someone made a Manhattan street garden in front of one limestone. I took the picture on the right because I was reminded of the brownstone apartments in Edith Wharton's "House of Mirth" where Lawrence Selden lived. These brownstones are in excellent condition either through constant maintenance or very good restoration. Once upon a time, in Mrs. Wharton's era, the residential part of the city was almost all this brown.

Last night Peggy Siegal staged a New York premiere screening hosted by Chanel, of Sony Classic’s “Coco Before Chanel” (or, en francais “Coco Avant Chanel”).

It was because of the Chanel autobiography which I’d read earlier this summer that I was curious to see this portrait of the lady. “The Allure of Chanel” the memoir, was written in collaboration with her friend Paul Morand in 1948 when they were both living in Switzerland to avoid recriminations from their fellow Frenchmen because of their political leanings during the Nazi Occupation of France. After it was written Chanel decided not to publish. The manuscript languished for decades in Morand’s desk drawer and published for the first time only recently. NYSD readers may recall my reference to it in the Diary right after July 4th.


	After the movie, on the southwest corner of 57th and Fifth, Serena Boardman is bidding goodbye to Dori Cooperman and friends on their way to the Monkey Bar.

My interest in the brilliant character was not great. I’d bought the book, a small paperback, because it was beautifully published with an intriguingly witty cover of the lady herself reclining in hat and suit on the hearth of a raging fire in the fireplace. I opened the book, with no expectations, and soon found myself compelled to read more. The personality is so clearly defined – and alluring. She wasn’t like anybody else. And she knew it.

Her childhood was a sad one, losing her mother when she was six, being turned over to an orphanage or some maiden aunts, depending on where you read it. In the “Allure” it’s the maiden aunts. In the movie it’s the nuns. Doesn’t matter, it’s all very affecting and a portrait of the beginnings for this powerfully independent woman whose aesthetic influence on the culture runs deeper that any fashion designer would dream of.

The film, directed by Anne Fontaine, is in French with subtitles. I barely understand French and the subtitles were short and clear. Yet the film itself is so compelling and the actors are so believable that I left the theater thinking I’d heard every word every actor muttered.

Audrey Tautou portrays Coco from age 16 on. By then you know that she was an abandoned little girl after her mother died and her father left and went away forever. You know that her sadness was very great but oddly, so was her drive to go out on her own.


Audrey Tautou, who plays Chanel.

When she meets an aristocratic roué named Etienne Balsan (beautifully played by Benoit Poelvoorde who has a bit of Jack Warden and Gene Hackman in his character’s personality), she manages to move herself into his luxe life.

Through Balsan, she meets a romantic Englishman of a character named Arthur “Boy” Capel who is played by an American named Allesandro Nivola. Nivola, who went to Yale – with Bronson Van Wyck (in the picture with him), plays the role in French with his version of an Englishman’s French accent). Aside from that incredible feat, he’s a star.

Coco and Capel fall in love or in what Coco created as a substitute for “in love.” But is a star-crossed affair and it ends in tragedy with the early death of Capel. But out of it emerges the woman the world knows today for her bottled fragrance and her changing the woman’s costume for the 20th century.

I learned from reading “The Allure of Chanel” that this woman would always be interesting. I’ve known several people who knew her, some of whom – like Jackie Rogers, the designer/retailer who was her model in the 1950s.

All who recall her, recall with awe and often so much excitement that they tell you very little about what the woman was like to be around, and much about how fabulous they thought she was.

From her memoir, “Allure,” you get the picture that she wasn’t easy. You get the same impression from Mlle. Tautou’s performance. You also get that she was so compelling a personality that you’d get caught up in it no matter how she behaved.

Bronson Van Wyck and his Yale classmate, Alessandro Nivola.

Fernanda Niven, Christian Leone, and Marjorie Gubelman.

Ghislaine Maxwell in Fendi.

Marial Safra, Eleanor Carey, and Dori Cooperman.

Alina Cho and Di Petroff.

To the modern woman she’s almost an iconic symbol of feminine power. Tautou makes that very available; you know her, and you know she’s tough and preternaturally steadfast. The audience loved it.

It was a big fashion and fashionable audience at the Paris Theater last night (the film opens in New York and Los Angeles on September 25th – a week from Friday). Among those on the guest list were the stars, Tautou and Nivola, as well as the director Anne Fontaine, a very chic and American looking (to these American eyes) young woman looking hip in a black leather jacket.

In the crowd: Candice Bergen and Marshall Rose, and her daughter Chloe Malle, Eleanora and Michael Kennedy who were seated in a banquette with Sony Pictures’ VP in charge of the Classic, Michael Barker and his family. Serena Boardman, Johnny Theodoracopulos, Dixon Boardman, Pepe and Emilia Fanjul, Prince Dimitri, Kalliope Karella, Christine Schwarzman, Dori Cooperman, Alina Cho, Charlie Rose, Dayssi and Paul Kanavos, Bronson van Wyck, Marjorie Gubelman, Christian Leone, Dan Abrams, Jamee and Peter Gregory, Matt Doull and Vicky Ward, CeCe and Lee Black, Coco and Arie Kopelman, their daughter Jill Kargman. Mr. Kopelman was for a long time the head of Chanel USA and his wife Coco, just coincidentally shared a nickname with the brand.

The Monkey Bar in all its nighttime glory last night with guests celebrating the New York premiere of "Coco Before Chanel."

Also on Peggy’s list: Fabiola Beracasa, Hope Atherton, Aleixs Bledel, Thom Browne, Helena Christensen, Alexa Chung, Chiara Clemente, Brooklyn Decker, Poppy Delevingne, Patrick Demarchelier, Vanessa Guerrand, Zani Gugelman, Dree Hemingway, Wyclef Jean, Aerin Lauder, Leigh Lezark, Adriana Lima, Angela Lindvall, Shoshanna Gruss, Bennett Miller, Cliff Ross, Bar Rafaeli, Elise Overland, Lauren Remington-Platt, Jason Wu, Rachel Zoe, Alison Sarofim, John Sykes, Emily Mortimer, Hilary Rhoda, Susan Luter, Ghislaine Maxwell, and on and on into the New York night.

Afterwards the glittering crowd moved over to the Monkey Bar where the producers’ took over the place for a private buffet supper party. Super buffet supper party along with champagne and whatever else was calling you among the libations. Monkey Bar’s allure is explained in the pix I took of the place last night. Haute New York nostalgia; a perfect spot to celebrate a brilliant and romantic film befitting its heroine.