The Allure of Chanel

SOCIAL WORK

I BEGAN WITH HALF A DOZEN WOMEN working for me. I have had as many as three thousand five hundred.

In 1936, like everywhere else, we had a sit-down strike. (Whoever dreamt it up was a genius.) It was cheerful and delightful. The accordion could be heard playing all over the house.

“What are your demands? Are you badly paid?”

“No.” (My staff are always better paid than anyone else’s, because I know what work is. Madame Lanvin even accused me of poaching her staff and wanted to take me to court.)

“What are you asking for?”

“We don’t see enough of Mademoiselle. Only the models see her.”

It was a strike for love, a strike of the yearning heart.

“I want to do something for you,” I then said to the staff. “I’m giving you my house.”

Grateful thanks from the CGT.10 Delegations from the trade unions. The new owners set off in search of funds, a working capital, promising to return soon; I’m still waiting for them.

At Mimizan, in the Landes, I organised a workers’ holiday camp. This experiment costs me millions, which I don’t regret. Buildings were constructed to house three or four hundred women. I paid for the travel expenses—second-class, so that they shouldn’t be offended—with one month’s paid holiday, instead of the legally entitled fortnight.

That lasted for three years. It was lovely, delightful and very jolly, for I didn’t want Mimizan to be like a prison.

After three years, the mayor asked me to close down, then he ordered me to do so. The motive: these lone women, he said, were taking away the region’s menfolk. The women from the Landes were not able to cope with the situation.

10 The Confédération générale du travail, the association of French trade unions. [Tr]