Friendships and Feuds in the Fashion World

Chanel's relationships with other designers and fashion professionals were marked by extremes of loyalty and enmity. She could be a generous mentor and a vicious rival, often simultaneously. These relationships reveal much about her character: the insecurity beneath the bravado, the need for control, the inability to forgive perceived betrayals.

Her rivalry with Elsa Schiaparelli became legendary in fashion circles. Chanel dismissed Schiaparelli as "that Italian artist who makes clothes," while Schiaparelli referred to Chanel as "that dreary little bourgeoise." The rivalry went beyond professional competition to personal antipathy. At a costume ball, Chanel "accidentally" set Schiaparelli's tree costume on fire—an incident both women later recounted with different emphases on intentionality.

Yet the Schiaparelli rivalry also pushed Chanel creatively. The competition between Schiaparelli's surrealist fantasies and Chanel's refined minimalism defined fashion in the 1930s. Each designer's aesthetic gained clarity in opposition to the other. The fashion press eagerly covered their feud, generating publicity that benefited both houses, though neither woman would have acknowledged this mutual benefit.

Paul Poiret, the designer who had liberated women from corsets before Chanel, became a particular target of her ire. As Poiret's fortunes declined and Chanel's rose, she showed no mercy to the man who had paved her way. When Poiret faced bankruptcy, Chanel publicly gloated, calling him a costumer rather than a couturier. This cruelty toward a fallen rival revealed an unattractive aspect of Chanel's character—the inability to be gracious in victory.

With female designers of her generation, Chanel's relationships were complex. She maintained cordial relations with Jeanne Lanvin, perhaps recognizing a kindred spirit in another self-made woman. With Madeleine Vionnet, the relationship was more distant but respectful—Chanel acknowledged Vionnet's technical genius while considering her aesthetic too specialized. These relationships were professional rather than personal, marked by mutual recognition of talent if not warmth.