Fashion + Jewelry: Cuckoo for Coco (Chanel)

September 26, 2008

On the 125th anniversary of her birth, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (Aug. 19, 1883–Jan. 10, 1971) is reliving her 15 minutes, some better than others: Anything will top Lifetime’s recent…homage?…Coco Chanel. I love my Shirley, but only Lifetime execs know why Ms. MacLaine didn’t have a French accent. At least she developed a jewelry line during the "creative" process…

Shirley MacLaine in Coco Chanel

Photo via LifetimeTV.com

Chakra Sky Jewelry seeks to "ground the wearer with a natural stone that enhances the energy of the corresponding chakra.… They are also energetically enhanced through technology to promote a feeling of well being." Get your chakras aligned here.

Shirley MacLaine in her new Chakra Sky Jewelry line

Photo via ShirleyMacLaine.com

Look for other cinematic Chanel tributes to come: French director Anne Fontaine takes on a pre-famous Coco, played by Audrey Tautou, in Coco Before Chanel. The film is based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s novel L’Irrégulière ou mon itinéraire Chanel.

Movie poster for Coco Before Chanel

Photo via Zimbio

Also on the horizon, director Danièle Thompson is working on a biopic, as is William Friedkin, who’s focusing on Coco’s (here played by Marina Hands) relationship with Igor Stravinsky in Chanel et Stravinsky, l’Histoire Secrete (Chanel and Stravinsky: The Secret History), aka Coco & Igor.

Meanwhile in publishing land, coffee-table-book-lovers unite around world-renowned magazine and thesp photographer Douglas Kirkland’s Coco Chanel: Three Weeks/1962. That year, Kirkland, then 27, trailed a 79-year-old Chanel for, you guessed, three weeks. Forty-six years later, he releases the resulting photos, timed to celebrate Coco’s 125th.