Continuing our love affair with Gabrielle Chanel comes Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, a hot new biopic that portrays an alleged love affair between the couturier and the impoverished Russian composer. The movie is set in the early 1920s, when Stravinsky was living in exile in Paris, partaking of Coco’s offer to use her villa as a safe haven. Mademoiselle, at that time, was busy creating a masterpiece – Chanel No. 5 – marking a pivotal era in her career. In the lead are Karl Lagerfeld’s muse Anna Mouglalis and Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.
I am, however, too swept away by the film’s dazzling fashions and interiors to focus on much else: Set in Chanel’s suburban Paris villa, Bell Respiro, the cinematography is a sensual symphony of Damask fabrics, geometric prints, Art Deco stencils and Chanel’s trademark black, white and beige palette.
Excerpted from Casaviva India, October 2010
