Chanel may be expensive, but 'Coco addicts' maintain it is money well spent, writes Deirdre McQuillan, as the label opens its first shop in Ireland.
Next month sees the official opening of the first Chanel shop in Ireland, in Dublin's Brown Thomas. Irish customers will then have direct access to the clothing and accessories collections, including the iconic Chanel suit whose bouclé tweed cardigan-style jacket has become a wardrobe classic. Like the little black dress, it's the one item of clothing that remains as desirable today as it did three-quarters of a century ago, with an extraordinary cross-generational appeal. It has been copied endlessly by the high street where clever, inexpensive look-alikes ape the real thing, which costs more than €2,000.
Today, a Chanel tweed jacket is worn as easily with jeans as it was originally with a straight skirt. Earlier this year at a lunch in Buckingham Palace for "women of distinction", the most popular jacket of choice was Chanel. Two guests, Jemima Khan and the artist Sam Taylor Wood, turned up in exactly the same one. It has often made headlines; there's the unforgettable image, for example, of Jacqueline Kennedy in her bloodstained pink Chanel suit after her husband's assassination in Dallas.
So what makes a Chanel suit so special, so pricey and so much in vogue? Part of its mystique lies in the very nature of its creator, a woman who epitomised the modern spirit years before her time. A hard, shrewd businesswoman, Coco Chanel understood better than anyone else the power of a woman in masculine tailoring, and that careless, almost throwaway chic that she commanded so effortlessly herself. Harold Koda, chief costume curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is to host a major Chanel exhibition next year, told the New York Times recently: "I don't believe there's any other designer of the 20th century who was so much part of the changing identity of women ... she's a mother lode of fashion modernism."
The original couture suit, for example, was cut loose in the front to accommodate a woman's shape, and its skirt didn't pull or crease when worn. The jacket, in a light, wearable fabric, was weighted by a gold chain. The zipped skirt had a ribbon at the waist to keep the blouse in place - all the tiny details that mattered so much and that still count.
Today, nobody knows more about Chanel than Karl Lagerfeld, whose genius continues to impart vitality into this iconic brand. Modern manufacturing methods have made producing a ready-to-wear version a simpler task, but there is still a significant amount of hand work in the making of a suit, each one of which is numbered. Following a sketch made by Lagerfeld and the construction of a toile (a rough version of the finished jacket in muslin), the pieces of the pattern are gathered together and computerised into standardised proportions from a woman's size 34 to 50. Proportions have to be perfect, so that a size 44 has the same silhouette as a 38.
The silk lining and shoulder pads are hand sewn, buttonholes hand finished and the signature chain is added by a seamstress, one stitch per gold link. Before it leaves for the Chanel shop on the Rue Cambon in Paris or any other stockist, it is tried on for comfort and even shaken out to see that the buttons don't fall off. Only then does it enter the market place.
In Ireland, customers for Chanel are a select, well-heeled band who buy in London or Paris. But they insist that once hooked, it's an ongoing love affair. The passion can start with a quilted bag and chain. At least that's what did it for Alyson Stanley, a self-confessed "Chanel addict" whose fascination for Coco Chanel began when she was a teenager and whose home is even painted black and white, the signature Chanel colours. According to her, "it's the perfume for the l8th, the handbag for the 21st and the suit in the delivery ward - that's probably why I wanted so many babies," she smiles. Today, she's the mother of three small children, the latest eight weeks old, and confesses that she "would even dress my baby in Chanel if they had Baby Chanel". When we meet, the lucky infant is actually dressed as stylishly as her mother, but in top-to-toe Baby Dior.
A former model and one of the original Ryanair team, Stanley has been collecting "bits and pieces" of Chanel for the past 10 years, mostly in classic colours. A Chanel suit "is timeless and international," she says, "and it wouldn't bother me if I was wearing something 10 years old." For her it is an investment buy, and an all-year-round reliable, as wearable and as adaptable in September as at Christmas. Good clothes, she maintains, are like good furniture, which, if cared for properly, should last forever.
Her favourite Chanel pieces include a black wool suit, a classic jersey knit jacket trimmed with white, a sleek gold-buttoned black dress and two-tone shoes. "Everything I have is black, cream and navy. I am not wild about the funky stuff. The black wool suit is 12 years old and I will wear it as long as it fits me - the jacket looks great with jeans. I buy in Chanel in London, or in Harrods, but not every season, though I'd love that luxury." Everybody, she thinks, can afford a bit of Chanel, even if it's only the sunglasses or the perfume.
Her own love of good clothes was fired up by a spell working in a Blackrock boutique and continued in New York, where she modelled for Christian Lacroix. A car accident left her unable to walk for a year and initiated a fetish for shoes - "and once you have a pair of black Chanel shoes, you will never wear anything else." Her maxim is: "Dress shabbily and you notice the clothes; dress impeccably and you notice the woman." For her, clothes are more like pieces of jewellery. "I know it's a cliché, but when I wear a Chanel suit and put on my high heels, perhaps it's insecurity, but I feel more confident - I feel a million dollars."
Another Irish Chanel fan is Kate, "a Dublin girl now living in the country" in Tipperary (she is coy about her surname being published) whose first purchase, like Alyson Stanley's, was a quilted chain bag, bought about 15 years ago and which "I hate now, I kept losing the leather pad." Though she spreads her buying power around and loves a bargain, by her own admission Kate can never "pass through a country without seeing what is in Chanel - I always pop in because different countries have different buyers." A regular customer in London or Paris (Paris, she says, is cheaper by about three per cent and New York is more expensive than London), her favourite item is a black jacket. "I won't tell you how many times I have worn it. It's so economical. There is rarely an occasion where I can't wear Chanel, though I don't wear it around Tipperary."
Kate's wardrobe includes lots of suits, little cashmere twin sets and shoes, and she buys every season, though she didn't particularly like last season's low waists and opted for Hermès trousers instead. "There could be three or four seasons when I don't see anything I like, but I usually buy two suits and a handbag to wear to Ascot - I have bags in navy, black and beige and I take care of them." Items she tires of are passed on; a teenage daughter takes care of the bags. She also loves Ungaro, buys ball gowns from Laroche in Bordeaux and thinks Prada is more for her daughter's age group.
She, too, reckons Chanel suits are a good investment despite their cost. "I am still wearing one bought 15 years ago and it looks fabulous. I wear it to cocktail parties, dinners, restaurants. I wear the fine wool jacket edged with silk in summer, when it's chilly in the evening, with a white skirt. A navy jacket lasts forever, its great with jeans or trousers - you get sick of colours."
An impulse buyer, she is fortunate enough to be able to buy immediately if she sees something she likes; her most expensive purchase was a Chanel suit and a blouse for €3,000. "But I have made mistakes - don't believe anybody who says they don't.- I bought a Chanel suit in Geneva when we were coming back from skiing and it was horrible. The jacket, which fitted perfectly, was trimmed with purple and had a scalloped edge and fussy green silk lining, but the skirt was a size 46. I thought it was nice at the time, but ohmigod it was horrible. I have never gone back there since." Good service counts, and she has nothing but praise for the staff in the Bond Street store in London.
Though no fan of Chanel ski gear, or its summer wear, she prefers to stick to classic, safe colours like navy, black or beige, and cites the story of going to a wedding recently and not knowing what to wear. In the end she settled on a black top bought in Florence ("or was it Venice?"), a black and beige skirt, a black body from Pia Bang, a little black pillbox hat bought in London (and still in its hatbox), a black embroidered beige pashmina and black and beige two tone shoes - Chanel of course. "It was fabulous and all put together in a panic, but you can never go wrong with those solid colours."
Mrs C from Kildare (equally reticent about being identified) believes that a stylish woman can depend on Chanel for any occasion. It's her favourite brand. She bought her first suit about five years ago in Harrods and is now a regular customer of the Bond Street shop "though you do have to root around a bit."
Both she and her two daughters, both professionals, wear Chanel - in their own way. "We take the 7 a.m. flight to London and a taxi to Bond Street in spring and autumn and we don't touch the shops otherwise." Occasionally, she brings her old clothes to Beauchamp Place and sells them for sterling, but never the Chanel.
A woman who has always had an interest in good clothes, she is scathing about Irish couture standards, preferring to spend, as she does, €4,500 for a Chanel suit in London rather than have something made-to-measure at home. Irish women, she thinks, "have never smartened up". And she notices what people wear, particularly shoes and bags. "I could go out in Chanel and nobody would notice - I don't want to be noticed." Her favourite piece is a little fitted wine, grey and black tweed jacket bound with fur, which she wears with brown or black pants and Chanel shoes. Like many others, she swears by the shoes.
"In London, buying well is a normal, everyday occurrence," she says dismissively and though it takes up a lot of her time (and money), she prefers it to Paris. "I had two weddings recently and had to traipse over and back four times for different fittings and it cost €9,000. If I went to Paris, I would have to stay overnight and that takes up too much energy." Her advice is: "If you see something nice, buy it." Chanel in Dublin, in her opinion should do very well.
Chanel opens in Brown Thomas in early November