“If you were not born with wings, do nothing to impede their growth.”
There is a magical moment in ballet just before the curtain rises. When the musicians are still tuning their instruments and the audience appears to be holding its breath. It is in this moment before the performance begins that one really gets a feel for the art form — the sense of reverence and anticipation. It is all held in that sacred moment before things are in full swing and the dancers start leaping and pirouetting gracefully across the floor, as if it is the most natural way to move. And, in a way, it is. Because ballet is an art form that captures a language of the body. It is where the conceptual and the corporeal collide.
Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel understood this implicitly. For the iconic designer, dance represented the ultimate expression of movement. Her initial involvement with the esteemed Ballets Russes company began in the 1920s and continued on through the 1930s. During this time, Coco designed costumes for several notable productions — including Le Train bleu and Orphée — and collaborated closely with ballet impresario and the founder of the Ballets Russes Serge Diaghilev.
An enduring patron of the arts, Chanel held a particular place in her heart for dance generally and for ballet specifically — admiring the elegant grace of each movement and the effortless way that it merged the emotional with the physical. These were principles that Coco translated into the fashion world.
Viewing dance as a conduit for communicating emotions through movement, Coco believed that clothing could serve a similar function. As such, the spirit of movement became an important design consideration throughout all of her collections. Known for helping to free women from corsets, Chanel also prioritised working with breathable fabrics like jersey, which were made to move in. ‘I wanted to give a woman comfortable clothes that would flow with her body,’ Coco famously said. ‘ A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed.’
Continuing the Maison’s longstanding connection to dance, CHANEL today sponsors various ballet companies across the world and is now a Living Heritage Partner of The Australian Ballet. This involves helping to preserve the historical archives of the dance company and its six decades’ worth of performances, via the creation of a dedicated Digital Asset Management (DAM) system.
Recently, CHANEL invited me to attend one of The Australian Ballet’s stunning performances: the opening night of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon.
There is a magical moment in ballet just before the curtain rises. When the musicians are still tuning their instruments and the audience appears to be holding its breath. It is in this moment before the performance begins that one really gets a feel for the art form — the sense of reverence and anticipation. It is all held in that sacred moment before things are in full swing and the dancers start leaping and pirouetting gracefully across the floor, as if it is the most natural way to move. And, in a way, it is. Because ballet is an art form that captures a language of the body. It is where the conceptual and the corporeal collide.
Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel understood this implicitly. For the iconic designer, dance represented the ultimate expression of movement. Her initial involvement with the esteemed Ballets Russes company began in the 1920s and continued on through the 1930s. During this time, Coco designed costumes for several notable productions — including Le Train bleu and Orphée — and collaborated closely with ballet impresario and the founder of the Ballets Russes Serge Diaghilev.
An enduring patron of the arts, Chanel held a particular place in her heart for dance generally and for ballet specifically — admiring the elegant grace of each movement and the effortless way that it merged the emotional with the physical. These were principles that Coco translated into the fashion world.
Viewing dance as a conduit for communicating emotions through movement, Coco believed that clothing could serve a similar function. As such, the spirit of movement became an important design consideration throughout all of her collections. Known for helping to free women from corsets, Chanel also prioritised working with breathable fabrics like jersey, which were made to move in. ‘I wanted to give a woman comfortable clothes that would flow with her body,’ Coco famously said. ‘ A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed.’
Continuing the Maison’s longstanding connection to dance, CHANEL today sponsors various ballet companies across the world and is now a Living Heritage Partner of The Australian Ballet. This involves helping to preserve the historical archives of the dance company and its six decades’ worth of performances, via the creation of a dedicated Digital Asset Management (DAM) system.
Recently, CHANEL invited me to attend one of The Australian Ballet’s stunning performances: the opening night of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon.
A romantic tragedy set between France and New Orleans, the performance was utterly bewitching and I have been unable to stop thinking about the costumes, music, and storytelling since. Not to mention the dancing — which, in my mind, perfectly summed up Coco Chanel’s philosophy that dance is a ‘metaphor for freedom’.
Each pas de deux on opening night between the lead dancers — Benedicte Bemet as Manon and Joseph Caley as her lover des Grieux — were totally breathtaking. Moving as individuals yet also as one, their graceful lines reminded me of how intrinsic dance is as a language of the body. It is a way that we communicate with one another since before we even have the words to do so. From infancy to advanced age, it transcends both time and place. For ‘[y]ou live as long as you dance’, as Soviet-born ballet dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev has pointed out.
Similarly, you can dance as long as you live. I first learned the art of ballet at the tender age of five and, after a long hiatus, have recently begun taking lessons again. This is a humbling experience, to be sure, but once that has also shown me how certain movements become a part of our DNA. And remain, through the magic of muscle memory, as natural as walking or riding a bike.
Throughout this process of relearning, one of my teachers told me about an eighty-year-old woman who has also been learning ballet for the very first time as a form of physical therapy. And Nureyev’s words echo around my mind: ‘You live as long as you dance.’
In most traditional ballets, Manon included, the pas de deux is an integral storytelling device. And there is something so moving about the emotion conveyed in those moments. In witnessing two individuals support one another’s strengths so that they might shine, both separately and as a whole. Nureyev described the pas de deux as ‘a dialogue of love’. And in the case of the enduring pas de deux between CHANEL and dance, nothing could be more apt. The ongoing pas de deux between the French Maison and The Australian Ballet underscores Gabrielle Chanel’s original love of dance and her passion for movement as a symbol of freedom.
Theirs is a language of love, grounded in a language of the body — from how one is dressed to how one demi pliés. Because, as Gabrielle Chanel understood, both dance and design have the power to elevate us to new heights; to make us feel both totally transcendent and yet utterly ourselves. In her own words: ‘If you were not born with wings, do nothing to impede their growth.’
A romantic tragedy set between France and New Orleans, the performance was utterly bewitching and I have been unable to stop thinking about the costumes, music, and storytelling since. Not to mention the dancing — which, in my mind, perfectly summed up Coco Chanel’s philosophy that dance is a ‘metaphor for freedom’.
Each pas de deux on opening night between the lead dancers — Benedicte Bemet as Manon and Joseph Caley as her lover des Grieux — were totally breathtaking. Moving as individuals yet also as one, their graceful lines reminded me of how intrinsic dance is as a language of the body. It is a way that we communicate with one another since before we even have the words to do so. From infancy to advanced age, it transcends both time and place. For ‘[y]ou live as long as you dance’, as Soviet-born ballet dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev has pointed out.
Similarly, you can dance as long as you live. I first learned the art of ballet at the tender age of five and, after a long hiatus, have recently begun taking lessons again. This is a humbling experience, to be sure, but once that has also shown me how certain movements become a part of our DNA. And remain, through the magic of muscle memory, as natural as walking or riding a bike.
Throughout this process of relearning, one of my teachers told me about an eighty-year-old woman who has also been learning ballet for the very first time as a form of physical therapy. And Nureyev’s words echo around my mind: ‘You live as long as you dance.’
In most traditional ballets, Manon included, the pas de deux is an integral storytelling device. And there is something so moving about the emotion conveyed in those moments. In witnessing two individuals support one another’s strengths so that they might shine, both separately and as a whole. Nureyev described the pas de deux as ‘a dialogue of love’. And in the case of the enduring pas de deux between CHANEL and dance, nothing could be more apt. The ongoing pas de deux between the French Maison and The Australian Ballet underscores Gabrielle Chanel’s original love of dance and her passion for movement as a symbol of freedom.
Theirs is a language of love, grounded in a language of the body — from how one is dressed to how one demi pliés. Because, as Gabrielle Chanel understood, both dance and design have the power to elevate us to new heights; to make us feel both totally transcendent and yet utterly ourselves. In her own words: ‘If you were not born with wings, do nothing to impede their growth.’
