Lisa Chaney - Coco Chanel - An Intimate Life

As one element of the drive to patriotism, Le Témoin was anti-German and anti-Jewish. Above all, it was antiforeign, claiming France for the French alone. However, in 1934, Gabrielle was as shocked as the rest of Paris when a demonstration by forty thousand right-wing associations and war veterans ended by being one of the bloodiest since the Paris commune of 1871. Sixteen people were killed, more than two thousand were injured, the Right was narrowly defeated and the communists and socialists were roused to sink their differences in a new party, the Popular Front.

After more than a decade of entertaining and “show,” Gabrielle now gave up the Hôtel de Lauzan on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and moved into a large suite at a hôtel pension in the Ritz; her rooms were situated on the rue Cambon side. The furniture and objects she wished to keep were moved into a third-floor apartment she had made for herself in her rue Cambon building, at number 31. Here she would keep her clothes. For the rest, when Gabrielle felt the need of a home, she could travel south to La Pausa.

This move into the hotel had possibly come about after some prodding from the demanding Iribe. He had told her he thought her way of life was corrupting and didn’t understand why she needed so much. If she lived more simply, he might live with her. He said he hated complex people. Gabrielle apparently obliged, moving into two rooms in a family house nearby. After a short time, Iribe asked her, “Do you think I’m accustomed to living in such hovels?” and went to stay in the Ritz. Not long afterward, Gabrielle moved to the hotel, too.

This transition from the Faubourg Saint-Honoré to somewhere with its own servants meant that Gabrielle brought to an end her long association with her devoted majordomo, Joseph. Joseph had arrived when “given” to her by Misia on the eve of her wedding sixteen years before. Gabrielle and her manservant parted on bad terms: her ability to be unsentimental was at times quite ruthless. And yet, the loyal Joseph would never make any public criticism of his ex-employer.

Between Gabrielle’s fashion house and her textile and jewelry workshops, her expenditure was large. The effects of the Depression and the need to cut costs may have been another contributing factor in her move from the Faubourg Saint-Honoré to the Ritz. She now permitted herself to lean on Iribe. After years of grumbling resentment against the distributors of her perfumes, the Wertheimers, Gabrielle had begun a legal tussle with them over her “abused rights.” Iribe was sufficiently bullish that Gabrielle overestimated his abilities as a negotiator and asked for his assistance.

The serious lawsuits Gabrielle now brought against the Wertheimers drove them to attempt removal of her as president of the board. In September 1933, Gabrielle had given Iribe power of attorney, and he presided over a board meeting. But he was reckless enough to refuse signature of the minutes, giving the board just the ammunition it wanted; he was voted off by a majority. Continuing with the company’s reorganization, the Wertheimers succeeded in removing Gabrielle as president in 1934. Outraged, she could do little for the moment.

In 1934, Gabrielle was again in Roquebrune for the summer, at La Pausa. Friends staying included the composer Poulenc, the dancer Serge Lifar, and Horst P. Horst, a young German photographer. Another friend who often stayed at La Pausa was the Italian count Luchino Visconti, the future film director. Gabrielle had known Visconti for several years. At this time, Visconti’s self-consciousness about his position as a nobleman of leisure drove him to put much of his energies into his racehorse breeding. He met Gabrielle and her friends in Venice at the Lido or at the Venetian palazzo of his sisters-in-law, Madina and Niki Arrivabene, and in Paris. Serge Lifar recalled how it appeared as if all society was in Venice, and they all thought themselves

unique, exciting and beautiful… During those years… at Venice there were the great popes, like the Visconti, and the Volpi “doges.” Between Paris and Rome, society communicated and intertwined continuously. In Paris, those who welcomed me were the same ones I met in London, Rome or Venice, all capitals on that axis of triumphant worldliness. 9

Visconti’s biographer wrote that “Visconti loved Natalie Lelong [half sister of Dmitri Pavlovich], who had an affair with Serge Lifar and several women as well; Chanel had an affair with Visconti, who also loved Niki Arrivabene — they all loved each other and were all beautiful, bisexual and attractive.” 10

Despite his painful shyness, when Visconti arrived in Paris, his background and his handsome looks gave him a natural entrée into the Parisian version of the sophisticated Venetian milieu. When he was there, he had an open invitation to Gabrielle’s much-coveted lunches and dinner parties, where he found “the most glittering, famous and interesting wits at her table.” One or the other of Visconti’s sisters-in-law sometimes accompanied him, and one of them remembered these occasions as “so chic, one could die.”

Although Visconti’s understanding of Gabrielle wasn’t comprehensive, he came to know her well. Describing her as La Belle Dame Sans Merci, he recalled “her sufferings, her pleasure in hurting. Her need to punish, her pride, her rigour, her sarcasm, her destructive rage, the single-mindedness of the character who goes from hot to cold, her inventive genius.” 11Visconti was a connoisseur of interiors, making a number of fine ones himself, and admired what Gabrielle had created at La Pausa. He added that the gardens were “special again,” saying that Gabrielle “was the first to cultivate “poor” plants like lavender and olive trees, discard lilies… and flowers of that kind. The house was decorated in beige leather and chamois sofas, pieces of Provençal and Spanish furniture, then totally out of fashion, and everything was in soft colors like a painting by Zurburan.” 12

After years of wrestling with his homosexuality, Luchino Visconti had finally reached an accommodation with himself. This in turn led to some major decisions. Rejecting a conservative aristocratic existence and the comforts of family — in which, nonetheless, he believed profoundly — Visconti had decided he would make his mark on the world through art. In company with a number of others, he had fallen passionately in love with the photographer Horst, who had recently cemented his reputation with a set of alluring photographs of Gabrielle. Horst remembered that she

had had a row with Vogue [in fact, Condé Nast] and no photograph of her was allowed to appear in the magazine. I was sent to her: I photographed her and she said that the photographs were good of the dresses but looked nothing like her. “How can I take a good photograph of you if I don’t know you,” I answered. So she asked me to dinner. At that time she had had a row with Iribe… and she was thinking of him when I took my photographs. She adored them. “How much are they?” she asked. “Nothing,” I said. “To be able to take a photo like that of you was wonderful”—and we became friends. 13

In the summer of 1935, Gabrielle was at La Pausa awaiting Iribe, who had spent the previous weeks in Paris. He called to say he would arrive on the sleeper from Paris the following morning and suggested they could begin their day with a game of tennis. According to some sources, Iribe was warming up when Gabrielle joined him. Halfway through the first set, she went over to the net to ask him not to hit the ball so hard. Looking at her over the rim of his sunglasses, he stumbled and then collapsed. He had suffered a massive heart attack. Two days later, Iribe died in a nearby clinic, never having regained consciousness. Years later, Gabrielle would confess to believing she had caused his death because she’d persuaded him to resume the game when he’d complained of feeling faint. 14