Aphorism: Mode passes; style remains. (Coco Chanel 1965) Question about French version

Tue Aug 16 21:43:34 UTC 2011

Thanks for your response Victor. The original post on this thread
included the aphorism "Fashions fade, style is eternal" attributed to
Yves Saint Laurent but searching further makes sense. (The punctuation
in these aphorisms varies. Sometimes a comma splice is used as noted
by Chris.) Another variant attributed to YSL "Fashion passes; style
remains" was listed in the first post.

The earliest YSL version I have evidence for is dated 1975 and is
listed in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations:

Fashions fade, style is eternal.
YVES SAINT LAURENT (b. 1916). French couturier. Andy Warhol's
Interview (New York, 13 April 1975)

I do not know if the interview in Interview was conducted in French or
English because I have not seen this cite on paper.

In the 1966 novel "Lord Malquist & Mr. Moon" the prominent playwright
Tom Stoppard wrote:

You see, he understood that substance is ephemeral but style is
eternal... which may not be a solution to the realities of life but it
is a workable alternative.

Garson

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 1:33 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Aphorism: Mode passes; style remains. (Coco Chanel 1965)
>              Question about French version
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm certainly with Chris on this one, but I had a different concern. "Style=
> "
> has multiple glosses even in English and I am not convinced that the French
> [likely] original would correspond to the same English word in this context=
> .
> On the other hand, the version "styles change; style does not" actually
> communicates the message rather well. In particular, "last year's fashion"
> can be communicated as "last year's style"--both captured rather neatly wit=
> h
> "mode". But the "style" in the counterpoint is something entirely
> different--it's either the sense of a personal style (how one presents
> oneself) or the sense of style that a designer projects through all his/her
> lines. A French speaker would have to explain whether such distinction even
> exists in French, but that distinction may well be the root of the maxim.
>
> To confirm this suspicion, I typed "fashions fade" instead of "fashion
> passes" into the Google search bar. I immediately got a list of suggestions=
> ,
> all variants on "fashions fade, style is eternal"--which is exactly what I
> was expecting. If you're going to track down the original quote, you should
> certainly consider this version as well. Interestingly, the attribution on
> this one is almost universally to Yves Saint Laurent.
>
> VS-)
>
> On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Garson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> Many thanks to Charlie and Chris.
>>
>> The OED has an entry for "mode" that shows it has been used in English
>> with a sense derived from the French word for many years.
>>
>> mode, n.
>>  II. In senses derived from French.
>>    7. a. A prevailing fashion, custom, practice, or style, esp. one
>> characteristic of a particular place or period.
>>
>> Admittedly, the OED gloss mentions fashion and style, the two words
>> that the modern aphorism is attempting to distinguish.
>>
>> OED citations for mode begin in 1642. Here are the cites in 1884 and 1920=
> .
>>
>> 1884    W. C. Smith Kildrostan 69   We are grown To be a sort of
>> dandies in religion, Affecting the last mode.
>> 1920    Amer. Woman Aug. 7/1   In the neckwear departments the racks
>> are hung . . with madeup collars which attest the prevailing mode.
>>
>> Chris Waigl wrote:
>> > Are you completely certain this interview was conducted
>> > all in English and not, for example, partly in French with the
>> > help of an interpreter or by a bilingual interviewer?
>>
>> Excellent question. I examined the McCall's interview and was unable
>> to determine if it was conducted in French, English, or a mixture. The
>> prefatory comments do not indicate the language spoken and do not
>> mention a translator.
>>
>> While answering an interview question Chanel mentioned the Duke of
>> Westminster and indicated that she was able to speak some English
>> because she did so with him.
>>
>> (Begin excerpt)
>> I was lucky to have known the Duke. Fourteen years. That is a long
>> time, no? He was shy and timid, too, but I have never felt more
>> protected. He was solid and comfortable. He understood me=E2=80=94except =
> for
>> my working, of course. He gave me peace. He was generous. He was
>> simple. We talked half in English, half in French. "I don't want you
>> to learn English," he said, "and discover there is nothing in the
>> conversation you hear around us."
>>
>> The clips I found on YouTube show Chanel speaking only French. The
>> clips are from interviews performed in 1969 and 1970.
>>
>> It is possible that the entire McCall's interview was conducted in
>> French and the interviewer Joseph Barry translated the words into
>> English. I am not sure. Perhaps Barry was familiar with the English
>> word "mode" and thought it would be perfect for the translation.
>>
>> Alternatively, Coco Chanel presented the aphorism while she was
>> speaking English.
>>
>> Thanks for pointing out "la mode passe, le style reste". I can find
>> many instances of this French phrase but oddly none of them appear in
>> 1965 or earlier. This may be an artifact of the poor coverage of
>> French periodicals in the databases I access.
>>
>> If someone finds and shares a citation in French or English for this
>> saying before 1965 that would be very kind.
>>
>> Garson
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Chris Waigl <chris at lascribe.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > On 15 Aug 2011, at 06:47, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>> >
>> >> [...]
>> >> Here is a list in reverse chronological order of some variant
>> >> phrasings. (Some dates have not yet been verified.)
>> >>
>> >> 2011 Fashions fade, style is eternal. (attrib Yves Saint Laurent)
>> >> 2005 Fashion passes; style remains. (attrib Chanel)
>> >> 1995 Fashion fades. Only style remains. (attrib Chanel)
>> >> 1994 Fashion fades, only style remains the same. (attrib Chanel)
>> >> 1985 Fashion fades but style remains the same. (attrib Chanel)
>> >> 1983 Fashion passes; style remains. (Yves Saint Laurent during an
>> interview)
>> >> 1977 Fashion passes, style remains. (attrib Chanel)
>> >> 1965 Mode passes; style remains. (Coco Chanel during an interview)
>> >>
>> >> Here is some additional context for the 1965 cite.
>> >>
>> >> Cite: 1965 November, McCall's, An Interview With Chanel, [Interview
>> >> with Gabrielle Chanel conducted by Joseph Barry], Start Page 121,
>> >> Quote page 170, Column 4, McCall Pub. Co., New York. (Verified on
>> >> paper)
>> >
>> > Are you completely certain this interview was conducted all in English
>> and not, for example, partly in French with the help of an interpreter or=
>  by
>> a bilingual interviewer?
>> >
>> > The quote, as a quick google confirms, is noted in French as "la mode
>> passe, le style reste". And in one article at least it is claimed that Co=
> co
>> Chanel was fond of (or rather, was in the habit of or was not tiring of)
>> repeating this as a maxim(*). "Fashion passes, style remains" (or put in =
> a
>> semicolon if you want to avoid the comma splice in English) would be the
>> most straightforward translation I can think of.
>> >
>> > So if she were to have repeated it in English in this particular
>> interview after having said it in French, then "mode" (in the EN version)
>> might be a sub-optimall gloss of the FR "mode", with "fashion" a correcti=
> on.
>> The gloss might have been authored by herself, the interviewer or an
>> intermediary.
>> >
>> > Chris Waigl
>>
>
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