When fashion changes society: Chanel and women’s emancipation

What are the clothing items, events, fashion shows or fashion press campaigns that have perfectly reflected, and supported, the major csocial changes?
Among the countless merits of Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel as a pioneer of modern fashion, in support of women’s empowerment, the most mentioned is undoubtedly popularizing i women’s pants: in the 1920s, in fact, the designer made them a real key piece of the women’s wardrobe, contributing to free women from the tyranny of the corset and clothing that is too constricting in general as Paul had done before her Poiret with its models with soft lines and – we will say today – slightly oversized.

Coco Chanel followed in the footsteps of her “predecessor” to continue to support the female population in its social rise, towards a more dynamic life and especially independent. Although the wildfire expansion of women’s pants is the first anecdote that springs to mind regarding the iconic designer, Gabrielle Chanel has given new life to another important – still today – item of clothing for women, once also relegated to the man’s arsenal of style: the cardigan.

Madame Chanel maintained that “true elegance cannot be separated from the full possibility of free movement», Something that whalebones and ultra-rigid fabrics certainly could not guarantee. To create new key pieces of the women’s wardrobe, the designer was inspired by the comfortable fit of the men’s cardigan, blurring the boundaries between gender identities and giving a further boost to women’s empowerment.

The first cardigan it was invented over sixty years earlier, in the mid-19th century, during the war of Crimea, when the seventh Earl of Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell, led his brigade wearing a knitted jacket with a round neck, made of Berlin wool: like the balaclava, this became a garment that civilians could knit at home, to send to the soldiers.

It is even clearer then, how much Coco Chanel’s reinterpretation of the cardigan was a bold move for the time, not only because it was worn by men up to that moment, but also because linked to the most “masculine” imaginable imaginable: that of war.

But why this garment represented an important one social change? The cardigan was the quintessence of functionality sought after by the designer in clothes. After the First World War, in fact, with husbands no longer at war – many of them never returned – women began to roll up their sleeves, gaining access to sectors that had always been closed to them until then. Consequently, both women of the people and those belonging to the wealthier classes began to feel the need to be able to wear simple and practical clothes, which would give them greater freedom of movement, but without losing their inevitable chic touch: the cardigan represented the perfect passe-partout in this sense, to wear to school as well as to play golf, travel, go for a cocktail with friends and listen to jazz.

However, the new, soft and very comfortable women’s cardigan, as first conceived by Gabrielle Chanel, not only responded to the daily needs in the new routine of women, no longer relegated only to home life, and finally open to social and working life. In fact, this garment also reflected the personal aesthetics of its inventor: the designer she hated tousle her hair when she wore or took off a classic knit pullover, and for this reason he decided that the best option was to make a feminine cardigan. This was open, in some cases it had pragmatic buttons, and featured a new low cost fabric, which previously was the exclusive prerogative of men’s underwear: jersey.

The latter became the most widespread model so much that, a few years later, the French designer decided to capitalize on this already well-established trend to transform it into a new uniform of style and female emancipation: the cardigan suit, consisting of a soft jacket and a skirt, made of the same fabric. We are facing the predecessor of the iconic Chanel suit, which – like women’s cardigans in their original design – continue to populate the fashion house’s catwalks today. Furthermore, the Chanel cardigan he soon distinguished himself from his male counterpart because men’s stores continued to market the heavier and outdoor version (in vogue especially among motorists) while the women’s one, lighter and more relaxed, was perfect for the social life, allowing women to enjoy more freedom, self confidence and lightheartedness in society.

As a true revolutionary, Coco Chanel openly challenged the sartorial codes of her era, accompanying the social evolution of women with a radical change in the fashion industry. To further inspire – and confuse the most reactionary – was the fact that the designer not only undermined social and gender norms, but she was the first and fundamental ambassador, wearing her models herself: first-rate supporters of women and their emancipation, and her own incarnation, with the creation of her own company, to always maintain their freedom, financial and personal.

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