Whether Coco Chanel was really the way Georg Stefan Troller described her in his absolutely gorgeous portrait that appeared in his book “Paris Conversations” in the 1970s can officially be doubted. It was based on one of her last interviews, and the author admits at the beginning that she was angry with him afterwards, very angry, because he recorded the interview from memory and may have been somewhat free.
Of course, that already sounds like the fact that his portrait crossed the line of fiction here and there. But sometimes an adaptation is closer to the truth than reality. And if you just assume that 80 percent will be correct, what a stunningly annoying and funny person Coco Chanel must have been. At least in her mid-80s. She was about that age when she met the German journalist at the famous 31 Rue Cambon. Up the stairs and you were in her salon, “because Coco Chanel has her apartment above the shop, like every French shopkeeper,” writes Troller.
“The world is dying because people want to rest all the time…”
The encounter reads very lively. The journalist has been called in for lunch. When he comes, Madame is not in the house. When she finally arrives, she’s chattering away, uninterrupted by something as annoying as questions. Oddly enough, she sounds like Lagerfeld. Brash and witty, she throws out one bon mot after the other, sounding as amused as she is amusing. Troller is not at all charming in his description and therefore respectful. Since he doesn’t get a word in anyway, he just watches in amazement at the spectacle of this petite little whirlwind, who has a hat on and wears a beige Chanel suit with scuffed elbows. “Tell your readers, today’s women know too much – but they don’t know anything about tenderness.” “The world is dying because people always want to rest…” “And never go out without stockings and a hat!” Not long after this interview, Coco Chanel died – “hopefully not as a result of it,” writes Troller.
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