Abstract
Fashion is modern. The gradual conversion of “fashion” into a field encompassing all clothing practices and thus all modern subjects opens a space in which we might ask about whether modernist fashion exists. This chapter focuses on one of the fashion “breaks” of the modernist period, captured in Ernest Hemingway's image of the fashionable woman as an avant-garde artist and revolutionary leader. We could also call this image “Chanel.” The position of groundbreaking innovator in the field of women's fashion that is widely assigned to Chanel is one form of the modernist break. This chapter explores the modernism of both fashion and style through the figure of Chanel and demonstrates how expertly modernist commentary on these subjects foreshadows contemporary cultural studies. For a cultural studies approach to modernism, there is no question that the Chanel brand and “Coco Chanel” (her star status during her lifetime and her iconic status after it) together form a key figure in renovating relations between art, industry, leisure, consumer culture, and modern identity.
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