The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Interpretation: The moment Chanel tried on Etienne Balsan’s
clothes and elicited a new kind of attention, something clicked in her
brain that would forever change the course of her life. Prior to this she

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was always coveting something transgressive that stimulated her
fantasies. It was not socially acceptable for a lowly orphan girl to aspire
to mingle with the upper classes. Actress and courtesan were not
suitable roles to pursue, especially for someone raised in a convent.
Now, as she rode around the château in her jodhpurs and boater
hat, she was suddenly the object that other people coveted. And they
were drawn to the transgressive aspect of her clothing, the deliberate
flouting of gender roles. Instead of being locked in her imaginary world
full of dreams and fantasies, she could be the one stimulating such
fantasies in other people. All that was required was to reverse her
perspective—to think of the audience first and to strategize how to play
on their imagination. The objects she had desired since childhood were
all somewhat vague, elusive, and taboo. That was their allure. That is
the nature of human desire. She simply had to turn this around and
incorporate such elements into the objects she created.
This is how she performed such magic: First, she surrounded
herself and what she made with an aura of mystery. She never talked
about her impoverished childhood. She made up countless
contradictory stories about her past. Nobody really knew anything
concrete about her. She carefully controlled the number of her public
appearances, and she knew the value of disappearing for a while. She
never revealed the recipe for her perfume or her creative process in
general. Her oddly compelling logo was designed to stimulate
interpretations. All of this gave endless space for the public to imagine
and speculate about the Coco myth. Second, she always associated her
designs with something vaguely transgressive. The clothes had a
distinct masculine edge but remained decidedly feminine. They gave
women the sense that they were crossing some gender boundaries—
physically and psychologically loosening constrictions. The clothes also
conformed more to the body, combining freedom of movement with
sex. These were not your mother’s clothes. To wear the overall Chanel
look was to make a statement about youth and modernity. Once this
took hold, it was hard for young women to resist the call.
Finally, from the beginning she made sure her clothes were seen
everywhere. Observing other women wearing such clothes stimulated
competitive desires to have the same and not be left out. Coco
remembered how deeply she had desired men who were already taken.
They were desirable because someone else desired them. Such

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competitive impulses are powerful in all of us, and certainly among
women.
In truth, the boater hats she originally designed were nothing more
than common objects anyone could buy in a department store. The
clothes she first designed were made out of the cheapest materials. The
perfume was a mix of ordinary flowers, such as jasmine, and
chemicals, nothing exotic or special. It was pure psychological magic
that transformed them into objects that stimulated such intense
desires to possess them.