Wouldn’t you want to be able to get a glimpse at the apartment of legendary Gabrielle Chanel? To try to imagine Mademoiselle while walking in her luxurious home, to try to live for a second in an era that was about to change completely thanks to her talent, courage and free spirit?
Photographer and filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson thought you might want to, even though, when she entered the Rue Cambon apartment, didn’t have in mind the exhibition that opens today at London’s Saatchi Gallery, and stays open for public until Saturday October 4, but to complete a series of images for Coco Chanel’s biography .
“I went into it thinking, ‘what am I doing – I’m not that interested in photographing inanimate objects‘”, Taylor-Johnson told Vogue UK today during a tour of the exhibit, but then spent days “unearthing things I didn’t think would be there. The light is so perfect there – it was so majestic and magical. Sometimes photographing people is like pulling teeth, trying to get some sort of personality, and (Chanel) wasn’t even there and there was oodles of personality.“
The exhibition, entitled Second Floor, has 34 images showing Chanel’s intimate space, and for those lucky ones that can go and visit it, there is also a book, by the same name, that can be purchased.