There are very few feuds as fervent as that between the fashion industry and certain interpretations of feminism. Betty Freidman, author of the "Feminine Mystique" argues that fashion relegates women to the changing and non-consequential world of shifting styles, distracting them from expanding their minds. More radically, Naomi Wolf argues that fashion is something used against women to make them weak symbolically and physically.
Literature portraying fashion as the deviant and persuasive child of the mass-media world are endless. So it is no surprise that Bitch Magazine: The Feminist Response to Pop Culture went on a rampage against the publication of the children's book "Different Like Coco."
"Different Like Coco" is an illustrated retelling of the life of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel and is marketed to children between the ages of five and nine. The story of Coco goes like this, she grew up in an orphanage after the death of her mother. She was separated from the upper-class girls in finishing school and was continually marginalized throughout her career for her lack of proper breeding. In her 20s, Coco met a man who ultimately bought her the shop that launched her fashion career, and the rest is haute history.
Suzanne D'Amato of Bitch is not impressed. "'Different Like Coco' doesn't tell the story of a woman who was ahead of her time, but of one who propagated ideas as old as time: Men have the money. Women have their bodies."
She argues that the fact that a man buys Chanel's shop enforces the status quo of female reliance to the young readers. Yet what D'Amato misses is that a woman owning property in France during the early 1900s was rare if not downright impossible. Chanel simply used ingenuity and her available access points to gain what she wanted. Additionally, the book addresses the fact that many women did not work due to societal pressure at this time: "In the mid-1900s many considered it socially unacceptable for a woman to work." The language used makes this belief appear old fashioned and outdated, clearly not enforcing this as a suggested view today.
D'Amato also sees "Different Like Coco" as encouraging of capitalist greed: "Chanel's biggest 'difference' was that she grew up poor - not nearly as rare as the book makes it seem."
Indeed Chanel's financial situation is greatly emphasized for the first half of the book, but this more than anything illustrates that it was her mind, not her money, that got her to be where she was. "Her famous imagination" is repeatedly referenced, as is her "confident posture" and her "daring" attitude. None of these things are credited to anything material; not the way she looked or what she possessed. Furthermore, it illustrates the way Chanel differed from the social stratification, emphasizing the irony that a working-class girl ended up being the greatest influence of high society in her time. According to the storybook, Chanel changed working-class and upper-class socialization with the equal treatment she gave her clients.
D'Amato's greatest critique is the book's emphasis on body norms. "Chanel's adoration of fat wallets is matched only by her love of skinny bodies," D'Amato said.
Indeed the book does discuss the skinny "new" look designed by Chanel, but more than anything it is used as a metaphor for Coco's uniqueness. Coco Chanel didn't fit the current time's societal standard of beauty, and rather than conforming she changed it. True feminism minimizes neither shape as the body ideal, rather it finds a woman's worth in the things that lay within her. The overwhelming message of this storybook is just that.
It reads, "[Coco's] distinct beauty lay in an attitude, something that even the richest of socialites couldn't buy." It was her creativity and confidence that made her famous, not her skinny body or her eventual wealth. The third to last line in the book states that "nothing could attract more attention to Coco than just being herself." Sounds to me like self-love, not elitest narcissim.
Bitch's review of "Different Like Coco" look's too far into the symbolic implications underlying the cultural climate of the time, and misses the blatantly articulated reason Coco was so fabulous: she challenged society's norms in the exact way feminism encourages. She didn't accept typical gender rolls of dress when popularizing the pullover sweater or women's work suit. She didn't accept typical societal rolls of the lower-class interpretation of working women. To create change at all, she had to be someone who embodied a new way of looking at the fashion world. She had to be different.
