La Parisienne, Chanel

Chanel has always had a connection with Paris, both in its inspiration and its situation. Its also connected with France, but how do you think these that the country has inspired the fashion house?

Well I'm going to take possibly one of the most well known stories about Coco Chanel and how the climate (now the geography comes in :P) has possibly affected people all over the world.

The French Riviera

http://www.midwest-charters.com/

In the 1920's a nice, pale, white, clear complexion was thought the most fashionable, hence all the parasols in the sun! This was because a tan was seen as a sign of class. They thought as simple as this... the French middle class generally holidayed in the riviera area and the cote d'azur, which has of course a Mediterranean climate, which has hot, dry summers; and wet, mild winters where they would get tanned, bronzed skin. So a tan became a symbol of class, if you had bronzed skin, you were seen to be lower class.

Then strolls in,

Madamoiselle CoCo Chanel. Going on a cruise in the cote d'azur, not to be seen for weeks. And when she came off the ship with bronzed, tanned skin, it instantly caught on. CoCo Chanel had already popularized red lipstick, bobs, and made wearing black chic rather than mournful, so why would her tan be any different. Over the years obviously, the roles reversed and it was tres chic to have a beautiful, dark tan, rather than the delicate pale skin beforehand.

So although, I love everything Chanel has done for us, next time someone harms themselves just for the sake of a tan... you can blame Coco!

Tara x.

Tweet for Tweed!

(http://www.youtube.com/)

This is a video of the most recent chanel show, Spring Summer 2009, as you can see even a few outfits in, the fabric and even the pattern has been used. Tweed is a signature fabric for la maison de chanel, and was used throughout the years by the founder designer, Coco Chanel, and has now been reinvented by Karl Lagerfeld by playing with the thread sizes and even using it as a printed pattern.

But to cut to the geography of tweed in Chanel, Where does tweed come from? along with Chanel's other supplies.....

Tweed- When Coco Chanel first used tweed in one of the trademark 'Chanel suits', people were taken aback. Firstly, before the jacket was tweed, it was made from wool jersey, it was also colar-less which wasn't really seen before. But also, tweed was a trademark british fabric, so to use tweed in the '30's Paris fashion scene was almost anti-patriotic! :D tweed was first taken in around (this is where the geography comes in :P) the 1938 in the stock market crash, because it was a cheaper fabric to bring in from places like Scotland or England. But as the demand for the fast becoming classic of the chanel tweed suit increased, Chanel began to produce their own tweed in industrial Paris. Since then, Karl Lagerfeld has taken over for Chanel, and has famously recreated the tweed suit to become more "youthful" by incorporating it in mini skirts, playing with thread sizes, and as you see in the video, using just the pattern of tweed without the actual fabric, and in these ways, Chanel's tweed suits have become so iconic that a giant suit jacket was recreated for the runway show in the grand palais, s/s 08

http://www.francisandre.com/

But to really focus on the geography of tweed... Tweed is a woolen fabric that's woven, and is mainly known for being produced in mild climates such as Ireland, Scotland, England etc. also because they traditionally wear tweed for events such as hunting etc. so there's your brief erm... geography of tweed :D

Tara. x.

Chanel Boutiques

For this blog entry I researched to find all the stand alone Chanel boutiques (meaning Chanel sellers independent of a department store) all over the world. Doing this I found out that Chanel are very vague of their store locations and had to find as many as I could one by one, but anywho... I basically made this diagram with a world map and added points for all the stand alone stores I could put on without completely covering the map! Chanel has 200 stand alone boutiques, so by looking at where the majority of these are, you can get an idea of the supply and demand of that area for Chanel items. So here goes....

I added as many stores as I could fit (per continent :P), also, Microsoft Paint has to possibly be the most annoying editting program ever! but even with just seven boutiques up, you can already see the pattern. Turns out, that must most Chanel boutiques are in the western world, this, is obviously because the majority of people living below the poverty line are probably more concerned about clean water than the latest Chanel 2.55 bag (I apologize for the extreme sarcasm!).


Another thing that I found out, that you can't actually see from the diagram is that the most stores are in France and North America.




France - Because it's the country of origin for the fashion-house, and fashion is equally a large part of the culture. (31 Rue Cambon, Paris being the HQ for the entire fashion-house)





America - Because this (well once was anyway...) one of the countries with the most money to spend on things like ... say new Chanel a/w 08 two-tone tights...

(http://www.chanel.com/)

And as for continents like Africa, South America, and parts of Asia, you can see from the map, that there are no major boutiques. There are though, small boutiques in the 'luxury' holiday destination spots, where people would be more likely to buy. This is places like Dubai, Johannesburg, Cairo etc. So, in the end, the idea is simple enough, boutiques are placed where they will have business, and we see that most of Chanels business is in Europe and North America.

Tara x.

Introduction

Hello! This is my blog about the geography of Chanel... yes, the designer Chanel, however pretentious that may sound :P. I hope you'll find this interesting, because I'll be looking into the parts of the fashion-house that people probably never thought too deeply about, I'll go through the demographic of the buyers, the geography of their stores, where they are etc. and I'll also look into the suppliers for Chanel, leather, fabric and so on. So... do please enjoy my "geog blog" :D

Tara x.