Coco Chanel Essay -- Fashion Designers Essays

Coco Chanel In his 1993 book, Creating Minds, Howard Gardner attempted to distinguish characteristics that were common to creative people. In doing so, he concluded that many factors were involved in the development of a creator. For instance, the relationship between the Individual, the Work, and Other People (i.e. family and colleagues) (Gardner 9) was elemental in predicting future successes. Likewise, part of his hypothesis focused around the fact that creators typically make their mark in one single genre. He divided the types of work that could be created into seven different areas: interpersonal, intrapersonal, visual/spatial, logical/mathematical, musical, verbal/linguistic, body kinesthetic (Gardner vii). Gardner's rubric for finding commonalties amongst creators, or those people who produce innovative, influential works in their particular domain, has become a highly regarded and widely used tool for identifying creative genius. Likewise, one key factors promoting creativity was the marginal status of the creator. Gardner briefly mentions the importance of the relationship between the creator and their society (Gardner 42). In my opinion, Gardner gives too little attention to the importance of one's marginal status. I intend to show, through the example of Coco Chanel, that marginality can have an imperative impact on the development of one's creativity. Therefore, I will fit Chanel into the prescribed rubric that Gardner outlined in his book, and show how her marginal status defined her as well as her work. Part One: The Personal History of Chanel Chanel was born in 1883, illegitimately (Charles-Roux 9/3) to a father that would soon desert her, and a mother who would die by the time she reached the age ... ... different perspective on things. Perhaps she was "creative" because she did not know how to be "traditional." Maybe what seemed normal to Chanel, what felt natural for her, was simply different from what was normal for others. In any case, I feel that Chanel's marginal status was the main catalyst for her success as a fashion designer. Gardner overlooked the degree of importance that should be attributed to a creator's marginality. For in the end, to create is to do something original, what has never been done before. And to do something unique should mean to be unique. And to be unique and creative means to be marginal. Bibliography Charles-Roux, Edmonde. Chanel and Her World. The Vendome Press: London. 1979. Gardner, Howard. Creating Minds. Basic Books: New York. 1993. Madsen, Axel. Chanel: A Woman of Her Own. Henry Holt and Co.: New York. 1990.