CAPTURING COCO
When a young photographer spent three weeks with Coco Chanel in 1962, he captured the essence of the designer. Now, a selection of the images is on show in Perth. By Courtney Thompson.
IT SOUNDS LIKE the making of a Hollywood film. A young allAmerican boy is sent to photograph an internationally renowned designer who isn’t exactly known for her warmth. Over the course of their association her walls come down and a new bond is forged.
That’s exactly what happened when 27-year-old Douglas Kirkland was sent to Paris by his editors at Look magazine to shoot Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel in 1962. At that point, Chanel (or “Mademoiselle” to Kirkland) was making a name for herself in the US, thanks to Jacqueline Kennedy wearing her designs in the White House. “She ignored me at first”, Kirkland, now 85, tells Vogue over the phone from his home in Los Angeles. “I was very young and not [Richard] Avedon, so she didn’t pay me much attention and wouldn’t let me capture her. I was to stick to the models.”
Of course, it didn’t stay that way for long. After requesting the young photographer get the first round of photos processed, Chanel decided he could stay. The mood shifted, says Kirkland, when he found himself walking down a hallway of Chanel’s 31 rue Cambon apartment and the designer addressed him directly. “She said: ‘Salut’, and I didn’t know what that meant,” he says, laughing, before adding: “She also told me: ‘You must learn some French.’” So he did.
Over the next three weeks, not only did Kirkland pick up the local language, he spent hours one-on-one with Chanel (who was at this point almost 80), photographing her as she worked from both rue Cambon and her suite at the Ritz. While he captured her working – Chanel adjusting a cuff or walking into a boutique – Kirkland also managed more elusive, unguarded moments. Chanel smiling with lightness in her expression; lying on her stomach on an oversized lounge; and even standing alone in Versailles in a Burberry trench.
This month, 30 of these images will be on display at Claremont Quarter in Perth as part of a free exhibition curated by the retail precinct. As a collection, they constitute a portal back to a time before fashion shows became spectacle. More poignantly, they also offer one of the most intimate glimpses into the true charm of Chanel. “When people are seeing these images in Perth for the first time I want them to realise how human Mademoiselle really was,” says Kirkland. “That’s really important to me.”
Three Weeks with Coco Chanel by Douglas Kirkland is on now until April 12 at Claremont Quarter, Perth.