Background Overlap

While Theme Two does focus on Coco Chanel and Edith Piaf as "Working Women," I was surprised at the amount of overlap I found between the two women. Beyond their "courage, determination, and spirit" that our readings highlight, the two icons share similarities in their upbringings.

1. Both girls lacked relationships with their mothers. I find this noteworthy because mothers seem to play a dominant role in the influence of a girl's life. For both girls to grow up without a direct mother figure (Chanel had the nuns at the orphanage, and Piaf had her grandmother) and to become successful women is a bit shocking. While they did not have mothers, they did have women they could rely on - Chanel had her sister, and Piaf had her grandmother.
2. Each girl was in close quarters with prostitution. Piaf's grandmother ran a brothel, and Coco Before Chanel depicted Chanel's time as a singer to be in the venues that men found women to sleep with. 
3. Coco Chanel and Edith Piaf aren't their real names; their nicknames derive from stories involving animals. As we learned in the film, Chanel got her nickname Coco from a song she sang about a stray dog named Coco. Piaf took on this last name after an owner of a club she sang at called her mome piaf, Parisian slang for "sparrow kid" since she was so short and nervous. 
4. Neither woman married. Chanel, according to the film, knew she would never marry. Instead, she had a long affair with Arthur "Boy" Capel. Piaf never married, although she did have a baby girl with her boyfriend Louis Dupont. Further, both women's lovers died in crashes. Capel died in a car crash, and Piaf's longtime (but married, just like Capel) lover also perished in a plane crash. Despite their devastations due to their lovers' deaths, both women used the event as inspiration and motivation - Chanel seriously continued her line, and Piaf sang A quoi ca cert l'amour?
5. Chanel popularized the little black dress, and Piaf wore them. 

Who would have thought that these two, powerful women would have nearly parallel parts of their lives? Some of the overlaps are so unique, such as the animal related nickname and their married lovers' crash-related deaths. While these women had rags to riches stories, they set an example and are now influences of modern designers and singers, such as Claudie Pierlot (d. 2009) and Zaz.