Coco Before Chanel Production Designs
Coco Before Chanel Movie Trailer. The production designer, Olivier Radot, was responsible for the sets in The Lover, Queen Margot, Lucie Aubrac and Gabrielle (which won the French César Award 2006). “From our very first meeting, Olivier Radot appealed to me with his corrosive vision for the design of the sets,” she says. “I immediately felt we would be esthetically in agreement.”
Radot studied the life of Coco Chanel at length. “You must be careful to always focus more on the subject than on the period, and dedicate the world you create to the story, the sentiments and the director’s viewpoint,” says Radot. “That’s what gives a film substance. Instead of just copying the archives, I prefer to interpret, transpose, and feel free to keep the essence, the sensation. In any case, very few documents show Chanel during her years of apprenticeship. What I found most interesting in the end was to trace back to the source to find what had influenced her creation. We paid particularl attention to the sets for the orphanage and Aubazine at the beginning of the film, emphasizing the graphic, black and white aspect. The Aubazine uniform, with its black skirts and white blouses, also influenced her style. This starkness resurfaces at the end when Coco Chanel watches a triumphant fashion parade from the steps of the Maison CHANEL.”
Fontaine wanted the initial sets-the orphanage where she grows up, the cabaret in Moulins where she and her sister perform-framed in tight shots to create a sense of oppression. Then, liberty is made manifest when Coco arrives at Etienne Balsan’s château at Royallieu, which is a complete contrast to the severity of Aubazine. “We visited dozens of chateaux but eventually chose the first place we had seen!” Radot recalls. “Some were too ornate, others too pompous. We eventually chose the 18th-century château of Millemont in the Yvelines, as its white exterior with its chic simplicity could have inspired Coco. It was in these surroundings of Balsan’s that she discovered the world.”
The other concern the filmmaker shared with her production designer was finding locations that would enable them to shoot the film entirely in France. “Chanel embodies French elegance,” says Radot. “Her character is so Parisian that it would have been a shame not to shoot in France.”
Fontaine and Radot also collaborated on finding creative ways to bring naturalism to the atmosphere depicted in the film. “One of Anne’s qualities is to reject resorting to futile conventions,” Radot explains. “For the more spectacular scenes with a lot of extras, she prefers natural, true conditions to ultra-wide frames where considerable means are splashed over the screen for maximum effect. There is greater sensitivity when you feel some things are going on outside the frame. Anne is more into miniature and naturalistic effects than ostentation. In fact, hers is a very contemporary approach. Similarly, we understated the picturesque image of the `beuglant’-the rather coarse, colorful, thigh-slapping cabaret. I modeled it more on the American Café in Paris, with its dark wood paneling. We felt we had to tone down a place that was going to act as a setting for Mademoiselle Coco Chanel.”
The payoff for Radot was seeing the complete vision come alive. “I remember the day we filmed in the milliner’s workshop, the first Parisian set, which was the setting for Chanel’s initial success,” he notes. “When I saw Audrey Tautou wearing a new fingerwave hairstyle, with a cigarette at her lips, adjusting the trimmings of a hat, I had an impression I was really looking at Coco Chanel. It was incredible!”
Coco Before Chanel Costume Designs
To create the critically important costumes for the period of Chanel’s life depicted in the film, Fontaine turned to Catherine Leterrier (French César Award winner in 2000 and 2004), who demonstrated her talent working with Fontaine herself on her previous film, The Girl From Monaco (La Fille de Monaco), as well as collaborating with such acclaimed filmmakers as Alain Resnais, Louis Malle, Robert Altman, Luc Besson, Jonathan Demme, André Téchiné, Bertrand Blier and Ridley Scott. Leterrier started her career in fashion (she graduated from the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Haute-Couture Parisienne) before branching into the cinema and becoming one of the most sought after costume designers in the movie business.
“The whole crew was adamant that we should avoid all the traps of imagery, representation or the picturesque, in particular where costumes were concerned,” Fontaine says.
“The aim was not to make a movie about the history of fashion,” Leterrier says. “We occasionally had to take liberties with time. To fit in with the storyline, the famous striped mariner’s sweater worn by Chanel in the legendary photos of the 1930s appears earlier in the movie, in the scene where Coco is walking along the beach with Boy and notices the sweaters of the fishermen as they pull in their nets. At another point, as Anne wanted me to imagine how the world-famous CHANEL bag originated, I drew a quilted sewing pouch in the shape of the bag, and had it made out of an old, black, flecked cotton canvas that peasants’ clothing used to be made of, as if the young Coco had made it out of a remnant given to her by her aunts.”
A key element of the costume design was to show the influences that shaped the style of CHANEL. “In fashion, every designer has their own line, color and material codes,” Leterrier continues. “CHANEL’s is instantly recognizable. What Karl Lagerfeld did in adapting the style of CHANEL to the future, I did backwards towards the past. I went back in time, designing the first models that Chanel might have created and which could have fashioned her style. The style of CHANEL is distinctive in its cut, the supple hang of its fabric and the perfect simplicity of its finish. The costumes designed for the film had to be up to the exacting standards of Haute Couture.”
Leterrier set up a temporary workshop for the movie, complete with dressmakers’ apprentices and lead hands, that worked full-time to fabricate the extensive costume demands for the film. “For the scenes where there are a lot of extras-the dance hall, the racecourse, Emilienne’s theatre etc.-we made, in addition to the costumes, nearly 800 different hats, created by two great milliners, Stephen Jones and Pippa Cleator. Before she made dresses, Chanel was a successful milliner, and her hats were more architectural and less fussy than those of the times. She made fun of the over-ornate hats that some women wore: ‘With that on their head, how can they think!’”
One particular challenge was integrating the more contemporary looks with the era in which Chanel introduced them. “The difficulty for me was to contrast the elegance of Chanel’s simple and fluid style with the fashion in 1900,” Leterrier explains. “I wanted to keep its beauty, with the blouses that enhanced the bust, the ribbons, lace, feathers and frills, whilst showing its excessive, showy and formal side so I could contrast it with CHANEL’s pure, flowing lines.”
For the final catwalk scene, Leterrier chose authentic models and jewelry from different periods in the Conservatoire of CHANEL. “The collaboration of CHANEL was indispensable to us, particularly for the final sequence where it was unthinkable not to have dresses by the CHANEL label,” says Fontaine. “In this sequence, all the dresses come from the Chanel Conservatory of CHANEL. I met Karl Lagerfeld several times; we showed him the sketches of the clothes Catherine Leterrier was making.”
To accessorize, the costume designer went on a scavenger hunt. “I hunted down the cotton braids, silk ribbons, buttons and other period accessories at flea markets and antiques dealers,” she remembers. “I even found a platinum and diamond necklace that had belonged to Mademoiselle Chanel at the Louvre des Antiquaires. In the film, this magnificent piece adorns Audrey Tautou’s graceful neck in the restaurant scene where she appears in a black sequined evening dress. Audrey showed great interest in the costumes, and during fitting sessions I watched her concentrate and suddenly metamorphose into Coco Chanel.”
Leterrier also relished integrating CHANEL elements into the men’s costumes. As she notes, “For Balsan’s wardrobe, I introduced tweed, which was another of CHANEL’s codes, and for his dressing-gown I asked Bianchini-Ferier, in Lyon, to reprint a silk fabric with an old design by Raoul Dufy depicting horses, which I had recolored.”
“My whole team, from lead hand down to trainee, was highly motivated and everyone found it awe inspiring to be making the costumes for Coco Chanel. It’s like doing Molière when you are an actor, for us, CHANEL is mythical!”
To shoot the film, Fontaine enlisted Christophe Beaucarne, whose work behind the camera can be appreciated in Paris, directed by Cédric Klapisch; Paint or Make Love by the Larrieu brothers and Jaco Van Dormael’s latest movie. “Christophe Beaucarne is a director of photography who will rise to any challenge,” Fontaine enthuses. “He has an amazing combination of intelligence and humor.”
Coco Before Chanel (2009)
Directed by: Anne Fontaine
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain, Benoît Poelvoorde, Emmanuelle Devos, Roch Leibovici, Etienne Bartholomeus, Fabien Béhar, Jean-Yves Chatelais, Lisa Cohen, Pierre Diot, Berenice Sand
Screenplay by: Anne Fontaine, Edmonde Charles-Roux
Production Design by: Olivier Radot
Cinematography by: Christophe Beaucarne
Film Editing by: Luc Barnier
Costume Design by: Catherine Leterrier
Set Decoration by: Nathalie Roubaud
Music by: Alexandre Desplat
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and smoking.
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: September 25, 2009
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