COCO & TAUTOU

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Tautou is the star of Coco Before Chanel, which opens next month. The film deals with the generally sad and muddy years of the designer’s life, well before she lived in her very own suite at the Ritz. It starts with her unceremonious dumping at a gloomy orphanage run by moonfaced nuns in elaborate hats, and then winds through her years as a seamstress and half-assed showgirl, and then we watch as she becomes entangled in morally complicated relationships with a few wealthy men who facilitate her early career as a maker of hats. There was Étienne Balsan, who offered her a room in his incredibly grand house, and, later, Boy Capel, thought to have been a great love of Chanel’s, who handily provided the dough for her very first shop.