5 unmissable films about Coco Chanel

Coco Before Chanel, Anne Fontaine

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Coco Before Chanel (2008)

From her childhood in boarding school to her first dressmaking skills in Paris, via the birth of her fashion house, Anne Fontaine‘s biopic Coco before Chanel is a detailed review of the incredible life of Gabrielle Chanel, who throws herself as passionately into her work as she does into her love stories. Audrey Tautou gracefully embodies this great Mademoiselle who liberated women with her sleek, straightforward clothes. The French director decided to focus on the designer before her time of glory, to better understand the woman behind the fashion icon, and depicts a wounded woman, bruised by her neglected childhood and her tragic love stories. An elegant and touching film that finally portrays the real Coco.

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, Jan Kounen

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Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009)

1920s Paris… Coco Chanel is the name on everyone’s lips. The wealthy Parisian public rushes to her boutique at 5 rue Cambon to spoil themselves with feminine and sleek creations labeled with the iconic double C. Behind the scenes, the designer is broken by the loss of her lover, Boy Capel, who died in a car accident in December 1919. Her grief lasts until she meets the composer Igor Stravinsky, who was performing with his Sacred Spring, presented at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées a few years earlier. Fascinated by the charisma and personality of the artist, who fled the Russian Revolution, Coco Chanel decides to host him, his wife and his children in her Garches Villa, and becomes his mistress. It is this passionate connection that the director Jan Kounen highlights in his beautiful film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, in which Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen embody this meeting of creative minds.