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08/11/2018
Serenissima
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Serenissima
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25
two great rivals of their time
They could not stand each other: Coco Chanel vs. Elsa Schiapparelli - the great war of the fashion designers!
So would headline today the "Yellow Press".
And yet it is true: both women - each for itself a successful "career woman", were not green to each other.
Certainly it sounds nice when Coco Chanel invited the competitor Elsa Schiaparelli to dinner. But since before the chair was painted with fresh white paint, which ruined Elsa's evening dress, this is now really less nice - actually a very spiteful prank!
I say to it only: "Women!"
Both lived in Paris in the 20s and 30s. And one would think, the city and the clientele would have been large enough to ensure both success and livelihood.
Precisely because their creations were already from the origin not or only rarely corresponded to the taste of the customers of the others.
Here: Coco Chanel with her elegant, glamorous and classic designs; often quite gamine, like her own almost boyish appearance.
And there: Elsa Schiapparelli, who dressed some Hollywood stars (for example, Marlene Dietrich). Their fashion, on the other hand, was avant-garde, often overly eccentric, outlandish and yet fresh.
Contrasting also the origin:
Coco - Gabrielle Bonheur Chasnel - of illegitimate birth, grew up in an orphanage.
The Roman Elsa Schiaparelli, on the other hand, spent her childhood in a Renaissance palace in the circle of an intellectual family.
She later married a Swiss count; however, the two separated quite quickly.
So she was later forced to earn her living by means of her sweater models. Especially the famous small black with a large white bow on the collar (knitted in the same way as the rest of the sweater) meet with great interest.
For the first time in 1935, she presented her own collection in her new salon opposite the Ritz in Paris.
(In this hotel Coco Chanel was a permanent guest; initially because she had made her villa available free of charge to the family of her then lover Igor Stravinsky, whose maintenance she also provided.)
Even then, her creations are Elsa Schiaparelli's explosions of imagination and color.
Now that she was friends with Salvador Dalì and Jean Cocteau, this is not surprising.
Even today, her models are jewels in every exhibition; mostly to be admired in museums of arts and crafts.
So it can not fail that in 1937, at the height of her fame, the perfume "Shocking" delighted women, not only in Europe. This fragrance was a true globetrotter.
Elsa likes intrinsically heavy and persistent fragrances, that spectacular does not repel her - quite the opposite.
Therefore, the flacon also has the shape of a naked bust; the neck of the flacon is entwined by a centimeter measure and a gold-plated brooch with pink and white flowers represents its "headgear": just "Shocking"!
My memory of "Shocking" leads back to the beginning of the 70s: then, a little more than a teenager, I began to be interested in more than the usual young-girl fragrances.
My mom had surprised me - more or less by chance - with familiar fragrances; now I wanted to discover for myself.
And I remember that I liked at "Shocking" at that time first the packaging; at Woolworth's in the "big mall", on one of the appropriate tables, for believe it or not at that time 19.95 DM!
That an almost elfenhaft petite young girl was completely overwhelmed with this force of fragrance, interested me at the time so not at all.
We pronounced the name as it is written, but "Shocking": we knew and knew and shocking: that's what we wanted!
"Shocking" is now really neither for young girls nor for shy women created!
The prelude by the radiant force of aldehydes, paired with bergamot and - amazing, but really true! - Tarragon, already arouses interest.
A classic floral accord of rose, jasmine, narcissus (and I think also perceive gardenia), joins and is completed by a creamy honey note and the ever-gratifying glow of ylang-ylang.
Already up to here it is not a fragrance composition for respectable "higher daughters"!
The warm and sensual notes of amber, civet and musk form a strong, slightly animalic perceivable base.
As a counterpoint, patchouli and vetiver oil contribute fruitiness and a certain tingle.
All this is still rounded off by a strong nuance of garden carnation and equally aromatic sandalwood.
In "Shocking" really everything comes into play that "Lieschen Müller" would associate with a scandalous fragrance.
That makes this fragrance composition so unique, downright pompous - simply "shocking"!
After all here still a word about sillage and durability to lose, is really superfluous.
Here, too, the highest expectations are met. Elsa Schiaparelli also makes here no half measures.
(However, I can only speak of the vintage version, of which I recently got some drops!)
Again and again I like to look at the first advertising poster: the lettering "Shocking" de Schiaparelli - elegantly and sweepingly distributed over the sheet.
Here a girl, dressed only in a red turban, a likewise red bow around the neck and a naturally also red cloth around the hips, dances a wild round dance with a grinning little devil.
(And how the guy grins!) The girl's lipstick is also red, as is the ribbon that connects her to the little devil!
The "Shocking" flacon thereby cheekily peeks out of the cloth at the back, where it is tied.
This entertaining and cheerful poster would certainly still arouse much attention today.
Even if not some half-naked too thin "star of the day" is depicted here.
That my memory of "Shocking", of course refreshed by appropriate reading and these few drops of fragrance, is still so vivid after almost fifty years, speaks for the tremendous impression that this blast of fragrance nevertheless left on me young woman.
By the way, I then soon switched to a "more age-appropriate" fragrance (I think it was "Blue Grass" by Elizabeth Arden).
As I remember, much to the relief of my mom. She was already then of the opinion that I cause too much fuss.
Good that she no longer has to experience me today!
To this would be really only to say: "Shocking"!!!
So would headline today the "Yellow Press".
And yet it is true: both women - each for itself a successful "career woman", were not green to each other.
Certainly it sounds nice when Coco Chanel invited the competitor Elsa Schiaparelli to dinner. But since before the chair was painted with fresh white paint, which ruined Elsa's evening dress, this is now really less nice - actually a very spiteful prank!
I say to it only: "Women!"
Both lived in Paris in the 20s and 30s. And one would think, the city and the clientele would have been large enough to ensure both success and livelihood.
Precisely because their creations were already from the origin not or only rarely corresponded to the taste of the customers of the others.
Here: Coco Chanel with her elegant, glamorous and classic designs; often quite gamine, like her own almost boyish appearance.
And there: Elsa Schiapparelli, who dressed some Hollywood stars (for example, Marlene Dietrich). Their fashion, on the other hand, was avant-garde, often overly eccentric, outlandish and yet fresh.
Contrasting also the origin:
Coco - Gabrielle Bonheur Chasnel - of illegitimate birth, grew up in an orphanage.
The Roman Elsa Schiaparelli, on the other hand, spent her childhood in a Renaissance palace in the circle of an intellectual family.
She later married a Swiss count; however, the two separated quite quickly.
So she was later forced to earn her living by means of her sweater models. Especially the famous small black with a large white bow on the collar (knitted in the same way as the rest of the sweater) meet with great interest.
For the first time in 1935, she presented her own collection in her new salon opposite the Ritz in Paris.
(In this hotel Coco Chanel was a permanent guest; initially because she had made her villa available free of charge to the family of her then lover Igor Stravinsky, whose maintenance she also provided.)
Even then, her creations are Elsa Schiaparelli's explosions of imagination and color.
Now that she was friends with Salvador Dalì and Jean Cocteau, this is not surprising.
Even today, her models are jewels in every exhibition; mostly to be admired in museums of arts and crafts.
So it can not fail that in 1937, at the height of her fame, the perfume "Shocking" delighted women, not only in Europe. This fragrance was a true globetrotter.
Elsa likes intrinsically heavy and persistent fragrances, that spectacular does not repel her - quite the opposite.
Therefore, the flacon also has the shape of a naked bust; the neck of the flacon is entwined by a centimeter measure and a gold-plated brooch with pink and white flowers represents its "headgear": just "Shocking"!
My memory of "Shocking" leads back to the beginning of the 70s: then, a little more than a teenager, I began to be interested in more than the usual young-girl fragrances.
My mom had surprised me - more or less by chance - with familiar fragrances; now I wanted to discover for myself.
And I remember that I liked at "Shocking" at that time first the packaging; at Woolworth's in the "big mall", on one of the appropriate tables, for believe it or not at that time 19.95 DM!
That an almost elfenhaft petite young girl was completely overwhelmed with this force of fragrance, interested me at the time so not at all.
We pronounced the name as it is written, but "Shocking": we knew and knew and shocking: that's what we wanted!
"Shocking" is now really neither for young girls nor for shy women created!
The prelude by the radiant force of aldehydes, paired with bergamot and - amazing, but really true! - Tarragon, already arouses interest.
A classic floral accord of rose, jasmine, narcissus (and I think also perceive gardenia), joins and is completed by a creamy honey note and the ever-gratifying glow of ylang-ylang.
Already up to here it is not a fragrance composition for respectable "higher daughters"!
The warm and sensual notes of amber, civet and musk form a strong, slightly animalic perceivable base.
As a counterpoint, patchouli and vetiver oil contribute fruitiness and a certain tingle.
All this is still rounded off by a strong nuance of garden carnation and equally aromatic sandalwood.
In "Shocking" really everything comes into play that "Lieschen Müller" would associate with a scandalous fragrance.
That makes this fragrance composition so unique, downright pompous - simply "shocking"!
After all here still a word about sillage and durability to lose, is really superfluous.
Here, too, the highest expectations are met. Elsa Schiaparelli also makes here no half measures.
(However, I can only speak of the vintage version, of which I recently got some drops!)
Again and again I like to look at the first advertising poster: the lettering "Shocking" de Schiaparelli - elegantly and sweepingly distributed over the sheet.
Here a girl, dressed only in a red turban, a likewise red bow around the neck and a naturally also red cloth around the hips, dances a wild round dance with a grinning little devil.
(And how the guy grins!) The girl's lipstick is also red, as is the ribbon that connects her to the little devil!
The "Shocking" flacon thereby cheekily peeks out of the cloth at the back, where it is tied.
This entertaining and cheerful poster would certainly still arouse much attention today.
Even if not some half-naked too thin "star of the day" is depicted here.
That my memory of "Shocking", of course refreshed by appropriate reading and these few drops of fragrance, is still so vivid after almost fifty years, speaks for the tremendous impression that this blast of fragrance nevertheless left on me young woman.
By the way, I then soon switched to a "more age-appropriate" fragrance (I think it was "Blue Grass" by Elizabeth Arden).
As I remember, much to the relief of my mom. She was already then of the opinion that I cause too much fuss.
Good that she no longer has to experience me today!
To this would be really only to say: "Shocking"!!!
11 Comments
Melipone
