Poetic Chanel
The Chanel perfume ads from the late 50’s through 70’s charmingly evoke a feminine loveliness that has been unmatched. Usually each ad shows a couple or a single woman thinking outloud about a special someone or a blossoming romance. The copy could only have been written by a woman who had experienced love, so poetic and sweetly innocent is each line: “When anything he touches becomes a souvenir”, “When daisies seem like orchids”…two of my favorites. To think a perfume could engender such thoughts! But to a young woman, a fragrance can indeed.
Some of the ads are collegiate – a young girl wearing her boyfriend’s letter sweater kicking leaves up together. Another couple sharing math homework assignments where it is written, “When he can solve all your problems”. Even as a teenager, however, I harbored no Cinderella illusion that a boy or man would one day fix everything in my life. But I had my dreams and the ad’s copy spoke to me just the same. And by the way, all my problems I usually solve myself with the help of a “boy” who is available, generous and kind. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
But what these ads do for me whenever I come across them, is discover that my everyday life can still hold a measure of romance. A Chanel girl has no reason to give up on wishes for a beautiful life. Yes, even now our lives can have poetry.
If you need help, appeal to the ads and look at your relationship in a new and old-fashioned way. Remember the reasons why you chose him and meditate on that. Create a picnic or a special dinner with candles. Romance your children and best friends too. Send cards, emails…links to beautiful music. If you are a singleton, romance yourself – languish in bed with your favorite coffee, take a spa bath with lavender salts, scour websites for the pluperfect flannel nightgown that is both dreamy and warm for the coming winter. Pray…buy one of the new pretty bibles or testaments that have room enough for you to embellish and write notes in.
The Chanel ads may seem antiquated at first glance, but I see them as anachronisms with a message. There is something still so modern about them. Yes, they may be trite or just a schoolgirl’s fantasy but who doesn’t need a touch of fantasy today? Immerse yourself in the sweet ads, the vintage clothes and hairstyles, the blush of young love, and the call to arms for everyday poetry.
6 Comments
Margaret
Yes, a lovely post, Donna, but the strange thing is I don’t recall those Chanel adverts at all. Maybe I was reading the ‘wrong’ magazines – you don’t get perfume ads in House & Garden, etc, ha ha! I wish ‘they’ would stop tinkering with the fragrances, though, even though I suppose this is inevitable when certain ingredients become either scarce or forbidden by law, as some fragrances are so unlike how they were in the 1950s and 1960s, Miss Dior being one of them (I know it’s not Chanel, but it was a favourite of mine since it was launched way back in the 1950s)
Love your posts, Donna. Keep well, keep safe.
Margaret P
http://www.margaretpowling.com
LA CONTESSA
HAD A call this morning from an old friend just checking in with me!I try to call two or three friends a week during this PANDEMIC to check on them.Women who are alone and older.
WE HAVE TO MAKE OUR OWN JOY!
Plus find the BEAUTY in each DAY!
XX
A Lovely Inconsequence
That’s wonderful Contessa! I’m going to do the same. Thank you and hugs.
Penelope Bianchi
Thank you so much for this! I have been married for almost 44 years to the love of my life…..my second husband, his second wife…..and I think exactly as you described……it is romantic every day. We are in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century….no one predicted…we are so lucky to be in a lovely place we created….with both of our talents..surrounded by animals…pet chickens, wild ducks, dogs, cats….beautiful forest…..
It was almost completely destroyed two and a half years ago by a “debris flow”; massive mudslide…..and we recovered and restored, and rebuilt…..(thanks to incredibe insurance); but our time together isolating in this time has brought us even closer….even more grateful for each other. Beautiful post, thank you!
A Lovely Inconsequence
I’m so glad you found meaning in my words Penelope! Thank you for your readership!
Karen
Oh, Donna! I love this post! The Chanel ads speak to my heart because they talk exactly about what you mentioned, romancing the everyday. Looking beyond the surface and seeing beauty, poetry, magic. I love the simplicity of them and I love the idea that this perfume, which is the only perfume I wear, has that in it that helps impart this beautiful concept. Thank you for writing this and thank you for sharing it. I love it! by the way, of course, my favorite one is the one where the girl is playing the piano and the boy is leaning over, admiring her. This is lovely–thanks again!!