27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

 

Coco Chanel, Lisa Chaney

 

• What surprised you the most?

What surprised me the most about Coco Chanel was her drive to open up her own store as a young woman in 1910 when it was not common at all for women to support themselves and create their own business ventures. 

• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

What I admired about this story was that she created her brand in an effort to offer more comfortable clothing options for women. The unmet need that Coco realized was the physical discomfort and impracticality in women's clothing so she supplied suits and "little black dresses" for women that wanted a change.

• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

There was nothing that I read in this book that dissatisfied me about Coco Chanel. The one thing that I'm skeptical about is that her first husband was wealthy and obviously helped her a lot to create her first business but then she left him to be with an even wealthier friend of his. I definitely don't dislike this but personally I'll never know if it was for love or for the money.

 

 Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

 

Coco grew up in the French countryside where her mother died when Coco was about 10 years old. Her father abandoned her to an orphanage where nuns taught her how to sew. When Coco was old enough, she started performing as a singer in bigger cities which is where she received her nickname. When she was 20, she was already involved with her first husband and creating her clothing brand.

  2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

Coco's main competency was her ability to get what she wanted to matter what it took or no matter what societal norms were in place. Coco's advocacy for comfort within luxury was very unapologetically her and was a feminist statement for that time. 

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

The main part that was confusing to me was the extent that her two affairs, Etienne Balsan and Arthur Capel, helped her create her first business venture. I wonder if she could have still created her brand without them. I also wonder if she was the "creative" aspect and the men carried the financial and business aspect.  

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

If I were able to ask her two questions I would ask what inspiration she used to create her scents and how was able to go about explaining that and getting an accurate representation of whatever she imagined. Another question would be about her love life since Etienne and Arthur were known to be friends. I would be interested to know what their relationships were like and what was the main reason she left Etienne for Arthur. It must have been very difficult for her to make this decision. 

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

Since Coco was a very practical and straight-forward woman, I imagine that she was a very willing and dedicated worker. I believe her opinion of hard work would be to do a lot in the field that you are really good at and then have other people take care of the other aspects of the venture. Although, I do agree with this method as efficient, I am the type of person that likes to oversee and make sure everything is running smoothly in all aspects of a project.