The Legends of Piaf and Chanel

As I was reading Margaret Crosland's, Piaf, I couldn't help but compare the story of Edith Piaf to the film we watched and conversations we had about Coco Chanel. It seems that the air of mystery that surrounds each woman, and their general attitudes toward life are quite similar, perhaps as a result of comparable life trajectories, and especially their youthful experiences. Both women have been influential in the cultural atmosphere of France. Their legacies have spread around the world, even after their time.

Yet in the first sentence of her book, Crosland describes Piaf as, "that plain little woman." She mentions her simple style, a black dress with no need for feathers or beads or other adornments, and suggests that this muted outward appearance might hide her rather dramatic and unconventional upbringing. Piaf spent a portion of her childhood in a brothel, lived a rather nomadic life, and had little connection with her mother. Much of this, in a general sense, is comparable to what we have learned about Coco Chanel's life. For one, Chanel built her career on the basis of simplifying the overly-adorned dresses of women at the turn of the twentieth century. In the film, Coco Before Chanel, Chanel one of the most iconic scene featured Coco dancing with Boy in a plain black dress, at the center of a sea of pinks and whites. Yet Chanel as well experienced an unusual childhood. She grew up in an orphanage after being abandoned by her parents. But more than their hidden youths, both women have a kind of personality that is perhaps self-assured in a way that challenges others. They are surrounded by an air of mystery that perpetuates the interest in their lives. Crosland mentions on several occasions that legends have developed about different stages in Edith Piaf's birth, and she even claims to have been cured of a temporary blindness! In class we discussed Chanel's interesting habit of making up different stories about her youth whenever asked. It is this quality of confidence, a certain je ne sais quoi that has kept people talking about these amazingly talented women for so long. Each woman was, of course, amazingly talented in her own realm of expression, but it is their characters that spark even more interest and admiration.