Coco Chanel? Diana Vreeland? Francine du Plessix Gray? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Statements about stylish clothing and beautiful furnishings are often opaque. Here is an example:
Elegance is refusal.
This statement has been attributed to two prominent fashion mavens: Coco Chanel and Diana Vreeland. I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please help trace this saying?
Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence that Coco Chanel employed this statement. She died in 1971 and received credit by 2000.
Diana Vreeland worked at “Harper’s Bazaar” from 1936 to 1963 followed by a job at “Vogue” from 1963 to 1971 where she became the editor-in-chief. Later she acted as a special consultant to The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 1980 Vreeland with Christopher Hemphill published an over-sized fashion photography book titled “Allure”. The work included commentary from Vreeland about fashion. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
“Fashion is a passing thing—a thing of fancy, fantasy, and feeling. Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well-dressed. It’s a quality possessed by certain thoughts and certain animals.
Vreeland mentioned two exemplars of elegance: an animal and an actress. Next, she employed the saying under examination:
So I said, “Gazelles have elegance. And Audrey Hepburn — magnificently.” Then I said something I’ve always known. I don’t know who it’s a quote from. I didn’t get it from you, shall we say, and I didn’t make it up, but I’ve known it all my life.
“Elegance,” I said, “is refusal.”
Interestingly, Vreeland suggested that she was not the creator of the saying, but somehow she had known it her entire life.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1980 “The New York Times” published a piece about the new book by Vreeland titled “Allure”:2
Fame in all its forms is celebrated by Diana Vreeland. Some of her favorite subjects — and her impressions of them in “Allure” — are presented here. …
“I adore artifice, but I also adore perfection. For the same reasons, I approve of plastic surgery. …
“Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well-dressed. Elegance is refusal.” …
Few qualities are more elusive than style, whether spontaneous or studied.
In 1962 “Newsweek” magazine published an article about Diana Vreeland, and she delivered a different memorable comment about elegance:3
As for the reader who pursues the cherished Vogue ideal of high-style elegance, the editor has a word of advice: “The only real elegance is in the mind; if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it. I don’t even like to use the word ‘elegance’ now. It’s been spoiled except as it’s applied to very fine furniture and animals.”
In January 1981 “The Christian Science Monitor” of Boston, Massachusetts published an article titled “Feminine beauty: defining an enigma” which included a discussion of Vreeland’s book “Allure”:4
All these photographs evoke an impression of the extraordinary … They possess the qualities not only of dream but also of epiphany, and collectively they make clear Mrs. Vreeland’s cryptic pronouncement at the end of that book that “elegance is refusal.”
In May 1981 the “Los Angeles Times” printed a piece by journalist Patricia Moore which included remarks from Vreeland which contained the adage:5
Diana Vreeland … eschews attributing elegance to objects. “It’s not a commercial word at all. It has to do with an inner discretion, a certain discipline, a willingness not to notice anything that’s not for you. I like the phrase, ‘Elegance is refusal.’ The refusal to collect, to experiment. I’m afraid it’s not good for business. It is a simplicity of thought, a total cleanliness.”
In 1985 novelist Francine du Plessix Gray published “October Blood” which contained a character named “Nada” who was based on Vreeland. The book reviewer in the “Los Angeles Times” wrote the following:6
Nada, fashion editor of Best magazine in New York from the late ’30s into the ’70s, preens her way across the decades like a diva who can’t get off the stage. She makes pronouncements—“Elegance Is Refusal”—with the fervor of someone professing the faith.
In 1988 the collection “Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations” included these two items credited to Vreeland:7
The only real elegance is in the mind; if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it.
Newsweek 10 Dec 62Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.
NY Times 14 Sep 80
In 1989 “The New Yorker” published a story about the fashion company Chanel. Diana Vreeland and Coco Chanel were both mentioned adjacent to the quotation. Passages like this sometimes lead to misattributions because an inattentive person reassigns a quotation from a less well-known person to a famous person:8
Looking at photographs of Chanel herself, wearing clothes that are as chic as anything invented since, I am reminded of Diana Vreeland’s axiom that “elegance is refusal.”
In March 1989 a newspaper in Columbus, Georgia printed a passage mentioning Diana Vreeland and Coco Chanel together with the quotation. This was another opportunity for the creation of a misquotation:9
Coco must be spinning in her grave. Her approach was minimalist. She undoubtedly subscribed to style-setter Diana Vreeland’s truth, “elegance is refusal.” Coco refused to look pretentious, to wear garments that pleaded for attention.
In 2000 “The Gazette” of Montreal, Canada credited Chanel:10
Quote
Elegance is refusal. Coco Chanel
In 2002 a message in the Usenet newsgroup alt.architecture.int-design expressed uncertainty about the creator of the quotation:11
“Elegance is refusal”
This quote is sometimes attributed to Coco Chanel, sometimes attributed to Diana Vreeland. What it means is that being elegant means knowing what to say no to, because to be elegant you need to focus your look rather than let it be chaotic and without theme or style.
In 2009 “The Gospel According To Coco Chanel: Life Lessons From the World’s Most Elegant Woman” by Karen Karbo ascribed the quotation to Chanel:12
All the best Chanel maxims are slightly opaque, koan-like. Perhaps her most famous one is “Elegance is refusal,” which can mean any number of things, from refusing melted butter on your popcorn to refusing to pay too much attention—or any attention—to your rival.
In conclusion, Diana Vreeland popularized this quotation by using it in her 1980 book “Allure”. Oddly, she disclaimed authorship by stating “I don’t know who it’s a quote from”. Yet, she also asserted “I’ve known it all my life”. Strictly speaking the author of the saying remains anonymous. The attribution to Coco Chanel is unsupported.
Image Notes: Public domain picture of jewelry from the photograph collection of The New York Public Library posted on Unsplash. The image has been retouched, cropped, and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Eli Burnstein whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration, Special thanks to journalist and linguist Ben Zimmer who responded to QI’s inquiry asking about the remarks of Vreeland in the book “Allure” by locating an excerpt containing the pertinent text reprinted in a Substack message from LA HAZE at “the envelope” dated April 6, 2023. This led QI to obtain the hardback of “Allure” from a library and directly verify the quotation and its context.
Update History: On November 10, 2024 the 1980 citation for “Allure” was added to the article and the conclusion was updated.
- 1980, Allure by Diana Vreeland with Christopher Hemphill, Quote Page 203, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
- 1980 September 14, New York Times, Section: The New York Times Magazine, A Vision of Style by Francesca Stanfill, Start Page SM69, Quote Page SM74, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1962 December 10, Newsweek, Volume 40, Issue 24, ‘Shattering Chic’, Quote Page 90, Column 2, Newsweek Publishing, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1981 January 13, The Christian Science Monitor, Feminine beauty: defining an enigma by Diana Loercher (Special to The Christian Science Monitor), Quote Page 15, Column 4, Boston, Massachusetts. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1981 May 29, Los Angeles Times, Opinions on Elegance or Formality — A New Trend? by Patricia Moore (Chicago Sun-Times), Quote Page F4, Column 4, Los Angeles, California. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1985 November 24, Los Angeles Times, Book Review by Mary Rourke, (Book under review: October Blood by Francine du Plessix Gray), Quote Page 12, Los Angeles, California. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1988, Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, Compiled by James B. Simpson, Topic: Fashion, Person: Diana Vreeland, Quote Page 272, Column 2, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
- 1989 February 27, The New Yorker, In Fashion: School of Chanel by Holly Brubach, Start Page 71, Quote Page 75, Column 1, The New Yorker Magazine Inc., New York. (Online New Yorker archive of digital scans) ↩︎
- 1989 March 12, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Classic look
back in vogue Josiah Sumbry, Quote Page E6, Column 1, Columbus,
Georgia. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎ - 2000 December 27, The Gazette, Quote, Quote Page 1, Column 1, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- Usenet discussion message, Timestamp: Aug 21, 2002, 10:18:48 AM, Newsgroup: alt.architecture.int-design, From: silvasurfa, Subject: Coordinating with walnut flooring. (Google Groups Search; Accessed Oct 30, 2024) link ↩︎
- 2009, The Gospel According To Coco Chanel: Life Lessons From the World’s Most Elegant Woman by Karen Karbo, Chapter 7: On Cultivating Arch Rivals, Quote Page 131, Skirt, Guilford, Connecticut. (Verified with scans) ↩︎