Abstract
We trace the history of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s entrepreneurial journey as a fashion designer from her early years as an outsider (early 1900s) to her rise to success and consecration as an icon within the French haute couture field (early 1930s)—a field controlled by powerful insiders. Our study sheds light on the social forces and historical circumstances underlying an outsider’s journey from the margins of an established field to its core. Drawing on unique historical material, we develop a novel process view that highlights the shifting influence of forces operating at different levels in the accumulation, deployment, and conversion of various forms of capital (i.e., human, social, economic, and symbolic) that outsiders need to promote their ideas. In particular, our multilevel perspective accounts simultaneously for the individual’s efforts to push forward these ideas (micro-level), as well as the audience dynamics (meso-level) and exogenous forces (macro-level) that shape their recognition. Chanel’s historical case analysis also affords a window into one of the first female entrepreneurs with global impact in business history, with the added challenge of establishing herself in what at the time was a male-dominated and mature field.
Highlights
The history of almost every field of cultural production chronicles the struggle between innovators operating at margins of a field—alias outsiders—who challenge the existing order and seek to establish their leadership by deploying and accumulating different forms of capital, and powerful field insiders interested in holding onto the status quo
What are the processes that allow outsiders to stake out some ground in the insiders’ terrain, especially when their ideas clash with the status quo?. We address this question through a theoretically informed historical study of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s entrepreneurial journey as a fashion designer from her early years as a “social outcast from the provinces”4 to her rise to success and consecration as an icon within the haute couture field
One theoretical perspective that we find useful in thinking of Chanel’s puzzling journey form the margins to the core of the global haute couture industry is the sociology of ideas, a perspective associated especially with the work of theorists like Pierre Bourdieu and others in the same tradition (e.g., Charles Camic, Neil Gross, Neil McLaughlin)
Summary
We trace the history of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s entrepreneurial journey as a fashion designer from her early years as an outsider (early 1900s) to her rise to success and consecration as an icon within the French haute couture field (early 1930s)—a field controlled by powerful insiders. Our study sheds light on the social forces and historical circumstances underlying an outsider’s journey from the margins of an established field to its core. Drawing on unique historical material, we develop a novel process view that highlights the shifting influence of forces operating at different levels in the accumulation, deployment, and conversion of various forms of capital (i.e., human, social, economic, and symbolic) that outsiders need to promote their ideas. Chanel’s historical case analysis affords a window into one of the first female entrepreneurs with global impact in business history, with the added challenge of establishing herself in what at the time was a maledominated and mature field
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