Wise Women Friday: Coco Chanel

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Words of wisdom from Coco Chanel (1883-1971), the brilliant French fashion designer:

Youth is something very new:

twenty years ago no one mentioned it.

My dear Coco, times have changed. Twenty years ago everyone did talk about youth. I remember because I was young then and everything revolved around me. Twenty years ago I was 24, newly married, and just starting graduate school. Like all the other 24 year olds I knew, I knew that I was on my way to ruling the world.

Hmmmm. I'm not exactly sure what happened there. I may have taken the wrong freeway, which is always a possibility in LA, especially for the directionally-challenged, of which I am.

Coco Chanel, however, did rule the world, or at least her little part of it. Did you know she was a poor foundling who grew up in an orphanage? I read it in Kenneth Turan's review of the new biopic about Chanel, Coco, starring that adorable Audrey Tautou, who seems to have taken the right freeway, but maybe there are fewer of them in France.