1.1 Early life
Coco Chanel was born August 19, 1883 in Saumur, France. Her real name is Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, the nickname Coco came along later in her life. After her mother died, Gabrielle’s father put her and her sisters in to an orphanage run by nuns in Aubazine, where she first learned to sew. When she turned 18, she moved to Notre Dame school in Moulins and continued her sewing. She got a job at a draper’s shop, working as a seamstress and shop assistant. During the weekends she also worked for a tailor nearby. She found a regular singing slot at a pavilion and this is where she got the nickname Coco, as the two songs she sang were ‘Ko Ko Ri Ko’ and ‘Qui qu’a vu Coco? ‘ and soon the audience greeted her with name Coco (Picardie, 2010a).
1.2 Beginning of Chanel
It was in the pavilion, where she met the first man who’d help her in her career. His name was Etienne Balsan, cavalry officer who became her lover and introduced her to the upper class lifestyle. Even though she used him as a stepping stone from Moulins to Paris, they stayed as friends until he died in 1953. Through Balsan, Coco also met Boy Chapel, another man who would help her. Coco left Balsan for him but Balsan’s jealousy kept them close. These two men helped her to open her first shop, Balsan provided the space for business and Boy took care of the cost of running it. (Picardie, 2010a)
The shop opened 1910 in Paris (Biography.com Editors, 2017). Coco had already been making hats to her friends and in the beginning she did that at the shop as well. Coco’s own style was very stripped down, often described as dressing like a schoolboy. This shows strongly in her products as well. At that time women’s fashion was very decorated and glamorous and Coco despised this. She said it was weighing a woman down and could not think straight in it (Picardie, 2010a). Soon her business got more popular as it was standing out from her rivals and she started selling clothes in addition to hats and opened two more shops with help from Boy Capel (Vaughan, 2011). Her dresses did not have corsets, they were made to feel comfortable and look chic.
In the 1920s Coco brought out many of her most popular products. She brought out her first perfume, Chanel No. 5, which is still one of the most well-known women’s perfumes. The production was backed up by Paul and Pierre Wertheimer and Theophile Bader but the deal they made was extremely unfair to Coco. According to Biography.com Editors (2017) the deal was “Wertheimer business would take in 70 percent of Chanel No. 5 profits for producing the perfume at their factories, with Bader receiving 20 percent and Chanel herself only receiving 10 percent.” Over the years she tried suing them multiple times trying to get a better deal but did not succeed, her company is kept by the Wertheimer family still today. In the 1920s she also brought out her famous Chanel suit and little black dress. She was also designing costumes for many plays and ballets. (Biography.com Editors, 2017)
She also experimented outside France. She opened a store in London with help from her lover at the time, Duke of Westminster, and it was a great success (Vaughan, 2011). In 1930s she traveled to Hollywood to design clothes for Samuel Goldwyn and his stars. It was a good time, as Europe was suffering from an economical crisis and Hollywood worked out for her for a while, until she realised her simple style would not fit the glamour and shine of Hollywood (Vaughan, 2011).
1.3 Silent time
When the World War II started in 1939, Coco decided to close down her shops, “this is not time for fashion” (Picardie, 2010b) . There has been rumours and later found evidence that during the war Coco would have been working with the Germans as her lover of the time was German military officer Hans Gunther von Dincklage. She was never officially charged but it affected her reputation, people saw her affair as betrayal of her country (Biography.com Editors, 2017). There was also rumours about her having a relationship with another officer and about her working for Germany in a secret mission (Picardie, 2010b).
While there is a lot of biographies written and filmed about Coco, they usually leave out a part of her life during the World War II and the time after that. Recently there has been more research about what happened during that time, but it is still rather unclear (Vaughan, 2011). It might be because people do not want to accept her relations with Germans or because there just is not enough information from that time.
After a long break from the fashion world, Coco made her return at the age of 70 with help from her US partners and the world fell in love with her products again (Biography.com Editors, 2017; Riot, 2013). She worked until her death in 1971, quite literally, as she was still working on a new collection the day before she died (Picardie, 2010b).
1.4 Presenting Chanel
There has been several books and articles written about Coco and her life, as well as a musical, and films (Biography.com Editors, 2017; IMDb.com, 2017). Most of them give a similar picture of Coco, how she behaved and worked. According to Riot (2017), they romanticise her life, focus on her love life and how it shaped her career. While it is true, her career was financed by her lovers and they gave her endless inspiration, her biographies tend to ignore the historical events and the entrepreneurial side of Coco.
As a person she is often described tough and little bit rebellious. She was acting against norms that women had at that time, whether it was about fashion or just her behaviour. It was rather unusual for a woman to be as successful as she was. A biopic Coco Before Chanel (2009) shows a rather realistic picture of Coco in the beginning of her career. It shows her as the strong character she is but also shows the romanticised side with Boy Capel.
2 KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF AN ENTREPRENEUR
2.1 Introduction to entrepreneurial traits
Farmer et al. (2009) states that “to become an entrepreneur, an individual needs to take action in identifying opportunities, deriving a plan to take advantage of the opportunity, executing the plan, and constantly monitoring and adjusting the plan”.
According to Chatterjee and Das (2015), there are eight key psychological characteristics for entrepreneurs; need for achievement, locus of control, self-efficacy, tolerance of ambiguity, risk-taking propensity, innovativeness, independence and autonomy and optimism. They are the most often mentioned traits when studying entrepreneurial behaviour and success. Caliendo and Kritikos (2008) also add problem-solving orientation, risk-taking propensity, interpersonal reactivity and assertiveness to the important characteristics. Now we are going to look into few of these.
“Need for achievement is a unique human motivational attribute which can be explained as a desire for success or achieving something brilliant” (Chatterjee & Das, 2015). This trait enhances persons motivation to work towards their goals and use their abilities for that (Alam & Hossan, 2003, cited in Chatterjee and Das, 2015). Reaching these kind of goals shows the persons drive for achievement matches the requirements of becoming a accomplished entrepreneur (Caliendo & Kritikos, 2008).
According to BusinessDictionary (2017), risk propensity is “degree to which an entity is willing to take chances with respect to risk of loss”. Risk taking propensity is a characteristic that is often seen on entrepreneurs (Chatterjee & Das, 2015). Chatterjee and Das (2015) states that it is often needed for entrepreneurial activity but it differs between different fields.
Traits give only a limited explanation regarding entrepreneurial behaviour. Also persons values, attitudes and beliefs will affect their choices whether to become an entrepreneur or not (Vesalainen and Pihkala, 2000). If a person has a strong sense of themselves as an entrepreneur, they usually drift towards entrepreneurial careers (Farmer et al., 2009). Persons attitude towards entrepreneurship is also shaped by demographic variables, like age, background, religion and gender (Sajilan et al., 2015), which is discussed more later in this report.
2.2 Innovation and creativity
Schumpeter (1934, cited in Alsos et al., 2013) defines innovations as new mixtures of production factors. It is a way to have increase in economic growth and is crucial for firms to maintain their ability compete in a market over time (Alsos et al., 2013). According to Landström et al. (2013) entrepreneurship and innovation are often linked together, they are often seen necessary for growth and industrial revival in society. But they point out that as phenomena they are different, as “not all new ventures can be regarded as innovative, and not all new knowledge generate viable business opportunities”.
Creativity and innovativeness are important traits for entrepreneurs (Lupsa-Tataru, 2014; Chatterjee & Das, 2015). According to Chatterjee & Das (2015) it motivates entrepreneurs “to emerge with new concepts of doing things, which in turn makes it possible for an entrepreneur to avail opportunities and utilise resources and set up and continue new ventures.” A study shows that there is a direct connection between entrepreneurs and creativity (Lupsa-Tataru, 2014). In the study, students of Transilvania University were asked question regarding creativity and entrepreneurship in 2009 and 2013 and the answers were then compared. According to responders, younger people are more creative than over 30-year-olds (figure 1) and that creativity is an important influence in firms success (figure 2) (Lupsa-Tataru, 2014).
Figure 1. Link between age and creativity
(Lupsa-Tataru, 2014)
Figure 2. The influence of creativity over the development of the firm
(Lupsa-Tataru, 2014)
The research on gender and innovation is limited. Also et al. (2013) suggest this might be because innovation is not usually seen as a person, but a product, organisation or process, and as a result, “when people are not visible in the discourse, gender easily becomes invisible. According to a study by Lupsa-Tataru (2014), students of Transilvania University associate creativity rather equally between both genders in years 2009 and 2013 (figure 3).
Figure 3. Gender associated with creativity
(Lupsa-Tataru, 2014)
2.3 Women and entrepreneurship
In general, women are said not to have as many entrepreneurial traits as men do and women might not have to required drive to become an entrepreneur, but it is suggested that this might also be because there is not much research about the subject and because female entrepreneurs are under represented (Max & Ballereau, 2013). According to Allen et al. (2008) only third of the entrepreneurs in developed countries are women but this might be because they choose not to be entrepreneurs (Max & Ballereau, 2013). The amount of female entrepreneurs has been increasing in the recent years and the rate of women becoming entrepreneurs is less than the rate of men (Gupta et al., 2009).
Women might not be as capable to run a business as men and it is 50 percent less possible for them to start a business compared to men (Raposo et al., 2008; Hay et al., 2002). According to Gupta et al. (2009), entrepreneurship is often seen as a masculine field and those who identify with masculine characteristics are more likely to become entrepreneurs. Gender stereotypes affect strongly on the field. On the other hand, women might be have more managerial qualities than men, and so be better entrepreneurs (Ferk et al., 2013). Zeffane (2012) concludes that overall, both genders have as much potential to be entrepreneurs according to his studies.
3 CHANEL’S ENTREPRENEURIAL SIDE
3.1 Chanel as an entrepreneur
As mentioned before, Coco’s entrepreneurial side is often left to minimum in her biographies. They focus on her love life and how it affected her. Her focus in life was indeed work, not love (Riot, 2013).
At the time when she started her career and became successful, it was unusual for a woman to do that. She was not the stereotypical lady she was supposed to be, choosing to be more stripped down, little bit masculine. As mentioned before, person with masculine characteristics is more likely to become an entrepreneur and that can be seen in Coco. The way she showed herself was strong part of the brand and Chanel is still seen as a powerful brand for powerful women (Riot, 2013).
Coco did not make it to the top by herself. She used her lovers, friends and their money and popularity to do it. She was good at making connections, were they political, financial, or otherwise famous. She has been known to be friends with, for example, Winston Churchill and Salvador Dali (a. Picardie, 2010). She did not do the work alone either, focusing on mainly managing people who did the physical work (Riot, 2013). According to Vaughan (2011) she tried to stay away from the paperwork of the business as well, as it “bored her to death”.
Coco was a great strategist. During World War I, she saw the opportunity for her collection. Even during the war, women still wanted to look elegant and well-kept, but not in the obvious way. It was perfect opportunity for Coco’s simple but elegant clothes (Riot, 2013). Thanks to this opportunity, Coco was able to start reshaping women’s style and continue it even after the war. She was also driven to create something new and achieve success, with her collections she always strived to beat herself as well as her competitors (Vaughan, 2011). She carefully judged situations when to take risks and had a great sense of timing, which helped her to get to the top (Riot, 2013).
3.2 Chanel and innovation
The inspiration for Coco’s collections came from everything around her, her lovers and the place she was living at the time. It began with her own uncomfortable feeling in corsets and decorated clothes and then continued with her friends, making simple straw hats with bows instead of large amounts of feathers and other decorations (Picardie, 2010a). During her time as Duke of Westminster’s lover and spending time in Scotland with him, she created her tweed collection of jackets and suits inspired his clothing, then when spending time on his yacht, the clothes had a sailor-like twist (Picardie, 2010a; Vaughan, 2011). In 1920s had a different style, as she created her Slavic collection. At that time she was spending time with Grand Duke Dimitri and he inspired and helped her to create and authentic Russian line (Vaughan, 2011).
In her biographies, Coco is often presented as the one who changed women’s style and freed them from corsets. The changes were happening already without her and she saw it as an opportunity to sell her own style (VAM, 2017; Riot, 2013). According to Barley and Kunda (2001, cited in Riot, 2013) “Chanel’s fame comes from an entrepreneurial venture, and socialites and artists are important to her success”. She had ideas and taste, but without her connections she probably would not have made it as big as she did. Her work was also copied multiple times, as were many others. In the 1910s, an organisation called Chamber syndicale was founded and its purpose was to protect the interests of the “high-end dressmaking profession” (Pouillard, 2011). Coco, among few others decided to not take part in this. Coco stood by her statement that piracy was the best form of advertisement, as it cost nothing to the creator (Pouillard, 2011).