Little Missy Gets Iconic On Rue Cambon
 Chic Chic Chic!

Little Missy Would Make A Good Nun And You All Know It!

Photograph by Frederic Aranda in London, 2012

 

 Yes, it was Fashion Week,  not Little Missy's favourite Fashion Week (that would be Haute Couture), but a very good one!  Having been to the Chanel show earlier in the morning, the urge to visit 31 rue Cambon, the inevitable Pavlovian Little Missy response to any and all things Chanel, flung itself into my conscious (what there is of it).  A burgundy sequined bag, big enough for the stuff one needs at night, a credit card, some bills, ID as we like to go to those downtown hot spots that require it, lipstick, cell phone and eyeglasses.  It adds up. So, off I go.  Well well, I am in good company, it seems.  Half the fashion world I know is assembled at Mademoiselle's apartment entrance next door for that rare little tour which is given to clients during fashion week.  "You look marvellous, darling, come along".  Well yes I will admit Little Missy might look marvellous to the Chanel crowd as I am head to toe in the latest that they have, a walking advert.  "Come along Christine, you've seen it a gazillion times but see it again.  It's fun and we can gossip", says Madame A.  So Little Missy goes on the tour of Coco Chanel's apartment at which Coco did not sleep (she really lived at the Ritz).
The Tour!
First we look at the Haute Couture and Little Missy gazes affectionately at the silver embroidered flapper dress she saw last summer, wondering who ordered it.  Then, looking around at our little assembled tour, including a young beauty from  Napa Valley (yes, Little Missy is surprised not to be in the know who she is, too)  it dawns on me that maybe no one has ordered it.  Or maybe six clients have.  It is a mystery, like the interlocking CCs on the light posts in Marylebone, London (Little Missy's favourite ever neighbourhood).  Did the Duke of Westminster put them there when he and Coco were having an affair?  I think he must have! What a tribute!  What a woman!  Then we walk upstairs.  There is a kind of rumbling and of course being from California I think at first it is an earthquake!  Or that maybe Karl has dropped by!  But OMG, the Russian Icon that Stravinsky gave Coco almost falls from its perch onto my head.  Little Missy may not lean so much to the Ecclesiastical interpretation, but goodness, is this some kind of message? That Karl is Not God and Coco is his mother?   Being the Chanel crowd, we laugh it off and then hear the story about Hubert de Givenchy visiting the apartment and as he is so tall, he knocks a crystal off the chandelier.  Then there is a tedious part about a frog and good luck and long life and all of that, but Little Missy is not going to bore you with it.
I will tell you this: the Chanel crowd likes to call that sunny spot for shady characters Monte Karl.  Those of you who are still reading this can pat yourselves on the backs, because really, that is a good one!

The Denouement (not to be confused with Deneuve)!

And did Little Missy get her burgundy sequined evening bag?  Maybe if I had gotten conked out by the icon, things would have been different...