Coco Chanel: an avid fan of hot chocolate?

Cast: Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain
Director: Anne Fontaine
Screenwriter: Anne Fontaine, Camille Fontaine

The name Chanel is synonymous with glitz, glamour, the glitterati, fabulous people and all things fashion. But the story of the woman behind the name could not be further from the image her label now conjures up.

Coco Before Chanel is a slow burning biographical film that shows Chanel’s early years were often tinged with heartbreak, sorrow and abandonment, and a sense of being lost amongst the crowd of the 1920’s French jet set.

Audrey Tautou leads the small cast as Coco, or Gabrielle as she was christened. The story, set amongst some stunning French countryside, is not hurried in any way and the majority of it is spent at the château of Etienne Balsan, (Poelvoorde) a racehorse owner high among the ranks of French society, who takes a liking to Coco while she is performing as a singer with her sister Adrienne (Gillain).

The sisters, who were abandoned by their father and brought up in an orphanage, work as seamstresses by day and entertainers by night. It is Balsan who begins calling her Coco, after the song she nightly sings, and who takes her in when Adrienne ups and leaves her to get married.

Coco also decides to leave her humdrum lifestyle and after emptying her meagre savings, sets off to Balsan’s countryside pad where she quickly falls into the routine of becoming one of his many conquests, while living as a lady of leisure. But it is clear she is not like those around her and stands out from the crowd in her mannish looking homemade outfits, while hand crafting her simple but increasingly popular hats.

Tautou plays the stubborn and hot headed but frail Coco well, and easily wears her rather sad looking face as well as her master’s ties and shirts. It is not until she meets and falls for dashing Englishman Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel (Nivola) that Coco finally begins to lighten up and we see a genuine smile break her face. And it is Capel’s arrival that ultimately gives her the inspiration to strike out on her own, leave Balsan and move to her beloved Paris to “make her fortuneâ€� by crafting hats.

But it is a disastrous catalyst that eventually leads her to go on a dressmaking whirlwind and begin creating the outfits, which will propel her into the catwalk stratosphere and cement her as a fashion icon.

Coco Chanel’s story is interesting, tearful at times, surprising and beautifully shot in this relaxed yet compelling film. Details of her rise through the fashion ranks and how she made a name for herself in this cut throat industry tend to be skirted over and her dress making ways are only shown subtly.

Instead we are presented with the rather unglamorous beginnings of a determined, yet shy young woman who had an extremely un-fashionable upbringing but which ultimately led to her becoming the catwalk’s leading lady. Whatever image you conjure up when you hear Coco Chanel’s name, it is undeniable that both she, and her designs, well and truly broke the mould.

Coco Before Chanel is out now on DVD and Blu-Ray via Optimum Releasing

By Lucy Clapham