Oh! Chanel/Chanel!

I can’t stress enough the role that consignment shops can play in acquiring the perfect wardrobe staples. I’ve recently started dabbling in consigning, both purchasing and selling classic wardrobe pieces. I snagged a DVF printed boho top for $25 last summer, an Elie Tahari leather pencil skirt for $40 this winter and my most recent (and by far BEST find)…a CHANEL/CHANEL (not Lagerfeld/Chanel mind you) black and white tweed vintage blazer for $500.

You read that correctly.  CHANEL/CHANEL….for $500!!!!!

Now, not until recently did I fully understand the magnitude of Chanel/Chanel and the lengths that some women go to searching for something this authentic. It wasn’t until I read The Gospel According to Coco Chanel by Karen Karbo as well as Lisa Chaney’s Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life that I truly grasped the difference between a Chanel/Chanel piece and a Lagerfeld/Chanel piece (Karl Lagerfeld took over as Chief Designer for Chanel in 1983 and continues to reign today.) As women living in 2012 with the flexibility of choosing to have both a relationship and a career, Chanel is a woman to admire; having chosen her passion over love. It was her drive and sense of self that truly reformed the way we women freely dress today. And it’s because of this that most women, who truly love and respect the era in which Gabrielle Chanel created Chanel Modes, search all over Europe for her designs. It was why I happened to pop into my local consignment boutique the other day just to get my feet wet with my search for Chanel!

The reason I wanted to get a head start on my hunt for vintage Chanel is because I am in the preliminary stages of planning a trip to Italy in October for my honeymoon and thought that maybe the consignment shops of Milan or Rome may hold a hidden classic Chanel/Chanel piece in my price range! I wanted to pick the mind of my local consignment shop owner and hopefully get her insight on where to shop and what to look for.

As I grazed through rows of consigned merchandise, I happened to mention to the owner that I would love to find a Chanel/Chanel piece to wear for years and hopefully pass down to my daughter or granddaughter! She conversed with me for a moment, to see how serious I was about purchasing Chanel (after all, I’m not her highest paying client) and then snuck behind her office to pull out a gorgeous black and white tweed vintage Chanel blazer. She mentioned that the client who consigned the blazer, who is a personal shopper for a wealthy Washington DC local, obtained the jacket in Paris but found it too small for her client, so decided to consign the item at my local boutique for $500 to get it off her hands. Well, well, well! I poured over that piece for a good twenty minutes. It had the buttons adorned with the interlocking C’s, the inner-lining hem trimmed with the infamous brass chain to add weight to the jacket and the best of all – an over-sized garment tag at the neck of the blazer reading: CHANEL – Made in Paris. I was sold!

The blazer was a bit too big, as it was a European size 12, so after I made my most memorable consignment purchase EVER, I headed over to my seamstress to have it fitted (who poured over the jacket herself for a good twenty minutes! Clothing makers know well-made garments when they see them…and Chanel is the best of it all!).

It’s incredible – a garment made to suit the styles of the 1950’s, suits the styles of the modern woman more than 60 years later! My Chanel piece is impeccably designed and looks so chic paired perfectly with a great pair of jeans to meet friends for drinks or with a classic black pencil skirt for the office: