Last night, I attended a screening of Coco Avant Chanel, a French film (yes, subtitled!) by director Anne Fontaine and starring actress (and Chanel model) Audrey Tautou as Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. The flick takes an in depth look at Coco before she became the woman we all remember her as - icon and entrepreneur.
To me, Chanel herself was inspiring thanks to her distaste of convention. She never married, was the lover of a married man and eschewed the traditional trappings of her day - corsets, fluffy dresses, heels and the like. Instead, she favored a simple, sometimes androgynous style and low maintenance grooming.
While I loved seeing her at her most natural, Tautou never shined brighter in Coco Avant Chanel than she did in the scene pictured above, with her lover, "Boy" (Alessandro Nivola). In a strikingly glamorous - yet simple - black sequined dress, a bow headband, bold red lips and perfectly groomed brows, this is a look that's as relevant today as it was in the 1940's.
Coco Avant Chanel opens in theaters on September 25. Check out the trailer here:
