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Yeezy, just a ticket to the fashion world

Hey people, why do you love wearing Off-White, Yeezy, Balenciaga, Supreme or Vetements? People say because they want to be somebody—young people don't just want to be ordinary but they want to be like Kanye, Drake, Beyoncé, Kate Moss or Kendall Jenner. And that's why they put on fashion brands like Givenchy or Balmain.  

Consumers drive the capitalism, that's what I learned from last class. But when young people are dying to buy the latest Yeezy, is it just because dumb people chase expensive and dumb things? Partially correct but basically there are also reasons. Yeezy makes ordinary people like us feel a little bit extraordinary because of Kanye. As more and more people join the “team Kanye” or “team Rihanna” to purse Yeezy or Fenty, those fashion brands also seem to become a little bit less extra. So what should we do to keep being “wild, young and free”? Going to Ultra? But Ultra only happens once a year. Buying other fashion stuff? But fashion will get old. Making friends with Gucci Mane or Kylie Jenner? But they won’t care who are you. Accordingly, making art is the essential way to keep being young. 

Like Coco Chanel said, fashion fades but style endures, the key point of having personal style and being “extra” is to make your own art and find the way you should walk on and the life you should live like. Learn from those cool people but don’t simply follow them because we are all individuals and we can never copy other people’s path or life. Wear Yeezy, but more importantly, create your own Yeezy. 

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The biggest lie Disney movie tells you: You are perfect just the way you are

When you first want to join a group, what are you looking for? The answer I've heard the most is that you are perfect just the way you are or I love you just the way you are. And I've seen the following scene many times in advertisings: girls remove their makeup and show their imperfect sides to public, and then say the classic line that I'm perfect when I'm real. However, what does real mean to us? I can’t help asking those girls that is it only the one who doesn’t wear makeup and dress up the real you? Or how could you say that the one who dress gorgeously with delicate makeup is fake? Unfortunately, we are living in a real world not Disney movies, and no one is born perfect. And if you think judging people based on look is superficial, you are wrong. 

Every man is born a blank canvas, waiting for adding some elements on it. If you simply think that “you are gonna be perfect as long as being the way you are”, then what you will hear from the cruel world is that you are gonna be a blank canvas, forever. Cool people become cool because they know what kinds of elements they want to add to their canvas. Those people are never satisfied with being a lame blank paper. Accordingly, so far the most important thing I learned from this class is to keep trying and rebelling against those social norms we don’t agree with. Basically, you are perfect just the way you are is a paradox, in other words, being real never equal to being perfect. There is no absolute real and absolute perfect, so that’s the reason why we need to keep trying. The meaning of being gambler is not simply to win money but to enjoy taking risk. Disney characters never take risk, and they just keep persuading people that you guys don’t need to change and you are already perfect enough. Guess what? Pablo Picasso won’t buy that; Frida won’t buy that; Coco Chanel won’t buy that; Katharine Hepburn won’t buy that; Jay-Z won’t buy that and Beyoncé won’t buy that. At first, they were also not sure what kind of people they would end up becoming, but they were sure that they wouldn’t just be a piece of white paper. They take every single chance to meet the challenge. Keep that in mind, Mickey Mouse is adorable, but not cool.

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The real meaning of being independent—conversation with Coco and Marlene

                     On the stage of history, there are two great women impressed me deeply, giving me a new definition of how to be a real independent woman—their names are Coco Chanel and Marlene Dietrich. In the contemporary society, there are so many women call themselves "feminists" and wear slogan T-shirts with words like "girl power". When I was younger, I used to be a so called "feminist" as well, but now I think it's time for me to re-understand the meaning of "feminist" and to be a feminist rather than simply calling myself a feminist. And there is also a question coming to me—what is the essence of being independent and what does it mean to be a feminist? For women, the reason that we want to be feminists is not simply for being or it is a trend to do so, but because we want to understand the central meaning of how should a person be. Compared to looking the answer from my parents, my teachers, my friends or all those "stunning" stars, I would rather turn to those great human beings who lived in last century, like Coco Chanel and Marlene Dietrich.  

                 In my opinion, it was such a pity that those two great women never had the chance to know each other. But I at the same time feel lucky to have the chance to know both of them and learn from them. Coco Chanel, the greatest female designers in 20th century, and Marlene Dietrich, one of the greatest female star of Classic Hollywood Cinema, all give me different inspirations in different ways. In the dictionary, the word "independent" always confuses me, and all the well-known cool people at the same time are independent, and Coco and Marlene are no exceptions. Their success is independent of anyone. But what is the true meaning of being independent?  

                    Coco Chanel, a girl who was abandoned by her parents and grew up in a nunnery, is a ruthless role all the way out of the bottom class. There are countless unimportant small figures such as Chanel's father at that time, and there are also a lot of helpless children who were sent to the orphanage, but there is only one Coco Chanel. For Coco Chanel, she success was not only due to her talents, but also because of her toughness, determination, attraction and luck, and more importantly, she took every single chance in her life. In childhood, she began to create a protagonist halo for herself, weaving a myth, and then relied on the belief in this myth, which eventually became a self-fulfilling prophecy. She knew what kind of people she wanted to be and what kind of people she would be, and then she unswervingly kept walking toward the destination that she wanted to reach. She believed that she would have an extraordinary and shining life when she was a little girl. Even though the belief at that time seemed unreliable, it is such a belief that supported her living in the hardship, and she did get everything she wanted. In the 20th century, Coco did what most women wanted to do but didn't dare to do—put on men's clothes to dress for themselves but not of men and the society. She abandoned corsets, long dresses, and everything that would stop a woman being comfortable and find her true self. Her ultimate pursuit was to feel comfortable to be herself.  

                      As for Marlene Dietrich, beauty is not her only weapon. I always believe that there's a gentleman living in this beautiful woman's bones and blood, in other words, she is a beauty with a double sex temperament, which makes her stand out of all the famous stars in Hollywood. The British theatre critic once said that Marlene's masculinity attracted women and her femininity attracted men. She has an ambiguous magic power which can make people see shadow of different types of women from her but feel a gentleman from her deep heart. She is absolutely attractive and gorgeous in a black smoking suit, like Christina, the queen of Sweden who was born 300 years earlier than Marlene. Marlene Dietrich, sometimes she has short hair and wears man's suit, but sometimes she also wears beautiful night dress and puts on impeccable makeup. She does not want to please everyone to be the one and only Hollywood star that other people want her to be. She is just a bird, waving her wings and following her hearts, and then looks at the world from a different perspective.  

                        Accordingly, I realized that sometimes when people say things like just be yourself or you are just perfect the way you are is the biggest lie in the contemporary society. There is nothing wrong with being encouraging but we cannot deceive ourselves all the time. We need to confront the truth that nobody is perfect, including you and me, and even Coco Chanel or Marlene Dietrich. What kind of people we should be? The answer is not just to be yourself. We need to look at ourselves from different perspectives and we need to get to know ourselves from other people's eyes, and then keep trying to add new elements to our identities, making us more complete human beings. Essentially, we need to be a someone we feel comfortable to be. To be comfortable, I learned from Coco and Marlene that firstly we are supposed to be have an expectation for ourselves—we should know what kind of people we want to be. Additionally, we also need to try to accept something that might make us feel uncomfortable. When Coco was younger, she also wore traditional women's attires like corsets and long dresses, and for Marlene, she had a difficult time in singing songs she didn't like in Berlin's bars. But those two great women all rejected things made them uncomfortable and started to create a new self. They removed all the once camouflage and labels. Once of them started to design her own clothes to dress like Coco Chanel and another one begun to sing songs she loves and to act like Marlene Dietrich. From them, I understood that the process of being independent means one needs to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations, and at the same time needs to rebel all the discomforts and to create a new self.  

                       Like the famous existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said:" one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman", Coco Chanel and Marlene Dietrich are perfect example of how to become a woman. In the 20th century, it was extremely hard for a people to find the true self, and so did Coco and Marlene because they also struggled a lot to figure out what kind of people they would become. For those two cool ladies, firstly, they were just normal people like everyone else. But they always knew that they wouldn't be satisfied with being normal and ordinary. Coco's relationship with Etienne Balsan, Arthur "Boy" Caple, and Prince of Wales, Edward VIII, as well as Marlene's relationship with James Stewart, George Patton and Ernest Hemingway all shaped them and made them not only women but humans with complete and complex personalities. For them, the real meaning of being independent and cool is not simply rejecting men but to learn to think like a man.  

                      If I ask Coco whether she was afraid and overwhelmed by the bustling and prosperous Paris when she was just a penniless girl singing at a bar, or if I ask Marlene how she felt about changing her nationality and helping Jews and dissidents escape Germany, I'm sure they would tell me that they never feel regret about rebelling everything could stop them and facing all the challenges. Because Coco is not only a designer but also a fighter fighting against fate and social prejudice towards women, and Marlene is not only a movie star, but more likely she is a warrior using her own power to fight against Nazism.  

                     Most importantly, what I learned from Coco and Marlene is to make decisions by myself and for myself. Do whatever you want to do—when you want to paint, just paint; when you want to write, start writing; and when you want to sing, singing loudly. Although we can learn from other people, we still need to figure everything out by ourselves. When I was younger, I always turned to my parents or friends for helping since I met problems, but now I realized that nobody except yourself could really help. Being independent means that we should always learn from cool people, learning the way they think and the way they talk, but eventually, we need to start to do it by ourselves. Going to college and taking classes is not a purpose but just a tool, helping us to start things we want to do. 

                   When I grabbed my passport and flew over twenty hours to a different country, making friends with people from all over the world and jumping into a group that people in my hometown would never try, I'm proud of myself because I know there's nothing wrong with being independent and different, and choosing my own life. And I know when Coco started her first store in Paris as and when Marlene left her country to act in her first American movie, they also knew that they are doing the right thing. At first, pressures from unfamiliar situations might make us feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable, but we need to face all the challenges and enjoying fighting against them, eventually, we will find out what kind of people we should be.  

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Don’t be what others want you to be and don’t just be “yourself”.

To be someone who is wildly attractive.

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Yesterday I talked with Coco Chanel

I asked her:“ how could an ordinary girl like you make such a success in the Vanity Fair?”

Yes, in such a big world, we are all just ordinary people born in ordinary family and received ordinary education to have an ordinary life.  

But there will always be someone who’s resigned to be “ordinary”.

Like Coco Chanel.

Coco was born as Gabrielle, a normal orphan girl who grew up in nunnery, has nothing but beauty and ambition. But how could she compete with those who born with a key to the golden gate? She’s just a normal girl like us, or even much worse than you and me. But if she was not an orphan, if she was not too poor to work every day and night, or if she was not Balsan’s underground and invisible lover, the she would not have her independent will, excellent sewing technology, and have no chance to meet Boy, her love for a lifetime. And she won’t be Coco Chanel. So people always say: “no experience is in vain.” When I saw the woman wear Chanel suit, smoking and sitting on the whitish staircase, she had my heart. However, there is no difference between Chanel and ordinary like us. She would also be entangled in emotional dilemma and career choice, and she couldn’t give up love while also wanted to give a shot to the unknown future. Then I asked her again:“ I want it all. But what should I do? I could be ambitious but more importantly, I am extremely clueless and helpless.”

For a woman, the process of becoming mature definitely requires a bit of bitterness. Suffering and pain is inevitable. If she could escape from death in such pains, then she will be blooming. Because I can see, I can see every scar on her fragile body, and I know how lonely she was. But she told me:“ hold on, head up, and be strong.”  

She said:“ Hey, look at me. I was abandoned by my father; I began to build her own huge fashion kingdom from my small hat shop; I never tried to be someone’s wife; but I conquered the men of the upper class, and the women.”

Because of her, I like women with true emotions, because most of them are perseverance and brave. And they will get what they want by all means.  

So how could such a girl win everything in Vanity Fair?

What Chanel got is not only talent, but a lot of ambitions and desires to go beyond other women of the same age. She was not resigned to be a little tailor but wanted to be a great actor, so she tried her best to win every chance to sing on the stage; she refused to be a poor and mediocre woman, so she won the heart of middle class gentleman Balsan.  

Moreover, she was restless to stay with a man even if he is very rich, so she decided to follow what she love: her love to love; She is never a poor woman even when her beloved man left her because of accident, and she put all her energy into her work to create her fashion kingdom.

Along the way, she got everything: wealth, status, love; but she was never stopped by anything. Because her ultimate desire is to be the person she truly wants to be.  

But Coco, what should I do?  

But even coco cannot tell me what I should do.

Because after all, we can never copy other people’s life.

But never mind, at least she is the one I can get inspiration from, and I will try figure out my own way.

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so hi do you wanna dance

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Just somebody you can dance with

Nowadays, it seems like every popular person has his or her own clique—they clique with other popular people and then form their "popular clique. But what is a cool clique? Is a popular fraternity of sorority cool? If we want to be in a cool group, do we all need to wear yeezy, vetements, and off-white to be like a Gucci Gang? Unfortunately, dressing like Kardashians doesn't make you cool; going to clubs every weekend doesn't make you cool; and having flawless and perfect Instagram account doesn't make you cool. Cool people don't make friends with 6000 people, they just make friends with up 6 people.  

When I was in middle school, I thought the "plastic" in Mean Girls is super cool: it is made up of the most beautiful and popular girls and they are queens in their little world. In high school, I thought Greek Life is the coolest. Those kids act like "grown up" and it seems like they can do whatever they want, and everyone wants "cool" brothers and sisters like them. However, all of these are not cool. I can't generalize every single people in a fraternity of sorority, but if you join a group just to be like all other people in the group, then you are not cool. Cool people don't need to be represented by a group, they represent their own group. In other words, people who don't need to be in any group but can do everything are real cool.  

Then what is a cool group? A cool group should be like The Beatles—Paul is the brilliant one, John is the most complicated, George is a mysterious dude, and Ringo is the funny one. Cool group also should be like Bonnie and Clyde, Sid and Nancy, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Because they can dance with each other, means they share the same frequency and their inner worlds are connected.  

To find other cool people you can clique with, firstly you need to be wildly attractive. Being attractive doesn't simply mean being beautiful. Attractive people's magic power is that they don't need to be flawless but make other people get obsessed with them. Because they have the power of controlling their bodies and show their best sides. Cool people don’t need to be liked by everyone and make friends with everyone, but they definitely need somebody to dance with. Although I can't say joining a sorority is absolutely uncool because saying that will be like I admit that I'm uncool, I still gonna confess that wearing Greek letters is definitely not a good choice for cool people.

You know what is a cool and attractive group? Not a college football team, not a Gucci Gang and not the Kardashians because those groups may seem popular but all the people in the group are the same—same figure, same face and same personality. Instead, a cool group should be somewhat complicated and contradictory—everyone is different and unique but they share the same frequency.  

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“Dress like you’re going to meet your worst enemy today.”

—

Coco Chanel (via quoteandinspire)

Per our conversation today–Advice for your next encounter with Scott Almeida,

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“I am not a heroine. But I have chosen the person I wanted to be.”

—

Pocket Coco Chanel Wisdom (via mesillusionssousecstasy)

A little more fashion advice from CC.

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“You don’t have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive.”

Diana Vreeland.

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Can loneliness destroy a person?

Yes, loneliness could destroy a, but loneliness could also make a person cool—cool in both two meanings. College, honestly, is like a huge pink bubble for us, but the truth is that we are just too afraid to be lonely, so we are desperately trying to find a "community" to accept us. However, if you are always in a safe and sound "community", you will never be cool. There is no pure friendship. We need to be brave to face loneliness and endure it.  

You need to walk like there are a thousand people behind you even when you are walking alone.

When I was in middle school, I though being lonely was sad; when I was in high school, I thought being lonely was cool; but now, I think being lonely doesn't mean anything—at least you need to don't give a damn about it if you want to grow up.  

And do you think you won't be lonely if you are surrounded by a lot of friends and talking some "going out" things? But life is not only about being with friends. It is also about books, movies, music and arts. We can see other people's life from them, we can feel the beauty of music and art, we can get to know more possibilities about love...... How could we still complain that life gives us too little and we feel lonely?  

Back to life, back to heart, and have a deep talk with your inner self. Having a soulmate is undoubtedly wonderful, but you cannot have it through seeking for it. Literally, what you can seek for is yourself, just yourself. Moreover, to see a bigger world, what we also need to do is to get out of ourselves. In the face of the vast world, the cooler you are, the happier you will be.  Yes, loneliness could destroy a, but loneliness could also make a person cool—cool in both two meanings. College, honestly, is like a huge pink bubble for us, but the truth is that we are just too afraid to be lonely, so we are desperately trying to find a "community" to accept us. However, if you are always in a safe and sound "community", you will never be cool. There is no pure friendship. We need to be brave to face loneliness and endure it.  You need to walk like there are a thousand people behind you even when you are walking alone. When I was in middle school, I though being lonely was sad; when I was in high school, I thought being lonely was cool; but now, I think being lonely doesn't mean anything—at least you need to don't give a damn about it if you want to grow up.  And do you think you won't be lonely if you are surrounded by a lot of friends and talking some "going out" things? But life is not only about being with friends. It is also about books, movies, music and arts. We can see other people's life from them, we can feel the beauty of music and art, we can get to know more possibilities about love...... How could we still complain that life gives us too little and we feel lonely?  

Back to life, back to heart, and have a deep talk with your inner self. Having a soulmate is undoubtedly wonderful, but you cannot have it through seeking for it. Literally, what you can seek for is yourself, just yourself. Moreover, to see a bigger world, what we also need to do is to get out of ourselves. In the face of the vast world, the cooler you are, the happier you will be.  

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We are not for the world, the world is for us

                 Defining cool has been a quintessential cultural quest for decades: everyone wants to be cool. But what exactly is cool? What does it mean to be cool? Do rebelliousness, toughness and thrill-seeking make up the essence of coolness? Can James Dean and Faye Donaway represent the common sense of cool? Personally, I think no one could give a definite accurate definition of cool. However, although we cannot define what is cool, we can still find the common qualities of cool people and explore how these people define cool.  

                   Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous German philosopher, in my opinion is one of the coolest human beings. But why people like Nietzsche? Compared to Plato, Kant, or Marx, Nietzsche absolutely is not a simple name which is easy to remember. However, Nietzsche was the first people who bravely said: "God is dead". To understand god is dead, the first thing we need to understand is that it is not a bad thing to "kill" god because the truth is human beings do not really need god as long as we can be masters of ourselves. Moreover, Nietzsche's ultimate purpose is to criticize the social norms at that time through proposing the idea god is dead. As a lonely and romantic traveler, Nietzsche is rebellious—he declares god is dead and he fights against all the traditional values. For Nietzsche, human beings should rise above our circumstances and difficulties to embrace whatever hardship comes. In his book "beyond good and evil", Nietzsche leads people to break all the norms and jump out of comfortable zones. Being our own masters means we need to admit the importance of our own wills and desires, at the same time emphasizing individualism. The moment that all the rebellious ideas appear in our minds, we are supposed to have someone to be our mentor to the way, and Nietzsche is exactly this kind of person. For cool people, there are always some characteristics can make them stand out—something doesn't conform to social norms of the time. What makes Bonnie cool? Her nonchalant and chill expression and her gun makes her different with these girls who wear flower dress. What makes James Dean cool? His locomotive leather jacket and Harley makes him stand out in those decent men in suits and ties. What makes Angelina Jolie cool? When other little girls dream to be ballet dancers, she wants to be a vampire. And her rebellious madness and boldness, her brave attitude in face of disease, and her brilliance of motherhood in face of children all make her an extraordinary woman. What makes Kurt Cobain cool? He'd rather be himself and be detested by others than changing himself to please other people.

                   What coincide with Nietzsche's ideas is the definition of cool given by Pountain and Robbins's book Cool Rules: cool is an oppositional attitude adopted by individuals or small groups to express defiance to authority. In other words, cool people are those who refuse to be sheep and they pursue everything they want through struggling. However, from Cool Rules, being cool forms part of risky series of negotiations about becoming an individual while still being accepted into a group, which means being cool doesn't equal to being weird. There should be an obvious limit between cool and weird. But what is the limit? To answer this question, I choose to look at the three requirements of being cool mentioned in Cool Rules—narcissism, ironic detachment, and hedonism. Firstly, narcissism means an exaggerated admiration for oneself, which gives rise to the feeling that the world revolves around you and shares your mood. Basically, this is a mood that I am not for the world, but the world is for me. Love yourself and follow your heart is always the first step of being cool. We should appreciate our parents giving birth to us but we are not supposed to live as they wish, and what we need to do is to figure out who we are and who we want to be, facing our desires and pursing dreams by all means. Never look back and never regret. Although some people consider narcissism as a sin of vanity, I personally think we should have an aggressive attitude toward our spirit of narcissism. Being aggressive when our pursuits and dreams are denigrated, and there's nothing wrong with being ambitious if at the same time we can be responsible for our behaviors.  

                   Secondly, ironic detachment is a stratagem for concealing one's feelings by suggesting their opposite. Philosophers divide irony into several types, but cool irony is a combination of different types of irony, making it a verbal weapon effective in aggression. For me, ironic detachment is the state of not being fully part of a specific scene due to that appreciation of life. Some people consider the world as a huge vanity fair and they want to constantly compete with others to win what they want. But cool people don't care. They don't want what the majority dying to get and they just want to follow their hearts. They are able to accept themselves and accept others, and they can also accept their own environment. In both the good and the adversity, they will accept everything and struggle to improve the situation. It takes a price to grow up and to be cool because growth always involves adventures, temptations and unknown things, and we should constantly try new experiences and expand our personal limits.

                     Last but not the least, hedonism is the simplest but also the most complicated cool quality. Literally, hedonism means we should simply seek pleasure and enjoy everything. However, cool hedonism is always driven by some ambitious motivations. This is a kind of pleasure from physical gratification, the excitement of competition or the charm of anticipated success. From my point of view, the pleasure that is too easy to get is not real pleasure. I think that hedonism refers to inner enjoyment, but not pure material pleasure. Some people think that the pursuit of material needs all kinds of abilities, but the pursuit of inner enjoyment is not that demanding. However, the pursuit of inner enjoyment is the hardest. Inner enjoyment is a combination. Things like food, money, sex are pleasure, at the same time reading, listening to music, watching movies, thinking, and debating are also pleasure. We need to combine different pleasures together to understand the true meaning of hedonism.  

                  In addition to the three characteristics above, cool people also need to be complicated, which means many of their features are contradictory. In W.E.B Dubois's opinion, being black is a constant sense of having "two warring ideals" within you, and a desire to merge your "double self into a better true self." For Dubois, he calls this kind of feeling "double-consciousness". Why someone cannot be an African and an American at the same time? But also because of this kind of double-consciousness, there appeared so many extraordinary African-American artists. Like Drake, Kanye, Beyoncé, they use their lyrics to show their rebellion to the society. When I was a little girl, my cool mom told me that never let anyone label me and stop me being who I want to be. She said girls can be aggressive and ambitious rather than being kind and sweet, and she taught me that she would rather choose to reflect on the fault she made rather than regret that she didn't even choose and try. As an Asian girl, I am constantly labeled but at the same time try my best to remove all the labels and fight against the stereotype people have about "basic Asian girls". The fundamentals of being cool is to rebel through struggling: struggle to find who I am; struggle to find my own way; struggle to rebel against all the people who try to be "good" to me; struggle to fight against the weaknesses of human nature; struggle to do some seemingly meaningless and boring things to find the meaning of life; and struggle to recognize the essence of life but still passionately love life.  

                   Nietzsche didn't write "beyond god and evil" for cool; Yoko Ono didn't create her art works for cool; Isadora Duncan didn't dance for cool; Jay-Z didn't sing for cool. Then I realized that this kind of cool struggling should be meaningless and subconscious. Our ultimate purpose of struggling is not to simply be cool, but is to be a sober, thoughtful and independent human being instead of being a sheep—we need to follow our own rules instead of parents' rules, social rules or god's rules. Essentially, having a set of sound, complete and independent value system is the base of cool. Cool can be an image, a way of looking, talking or doing, but more importantly, it is a way of being.

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Sup Cool Girls

In Cool Rules, Pountain and Robbins consider cool as an oppositional attitude adopted by individuals or small groups to express defiance to authority, in other words, cool is a permanent state of private rebellion. We have talked about a lot of cool guys in class, so let’s talk about these cool girls.

Coco Chanel:" I rebel the convent" 

As one of the best fashion designers, Coco Chanel once said that a girl should be two things: classy and fabulous. Coco is the pioneer of fashion, but was born in a poor and unhappy French family, and was sent to the convent after her mother’s death. However, she never chose to be another boring nun. Coco Chanel's bobbed hair, bright red lips and outspoken manner also broke the mould. This smoking, outspoken woman never married, but she would never be somebody’s wife. Chanel is totally a bad ass, and her attitude is something like what doesn’t kill me will makes me stronger, additionally "even if the whole world is my enemy. I don't care" is also her dominant attitude. She is the one and only Coco Chanel. 

Simone de Beauvoir:" I rebel the conventions" 

The French female philosopher in twentieth Century has a famous quote:"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." As women, we need to defeat so many desires that we can be the people we want to be. In traditional values, woman can be a good daughter, a good wife, or a good mother, but it’s so hard for she to be herself. However, Simone said no to all those conventions. She met Jean-Paul Sartre. The sparks from the collision between two beautiful minds were astonishing. They were the intellectual power couple of the 20th century. Though never married, the two soulmates Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvior are buried next to one another in the Cimetiére du Montparnasse. Only such a brave and independent woman can have such achievement and horizon. 

Frida Kahlo:" I rebel my fate"  

If Beauvoir redefines a woman, then Frida, the great Mexican artist who was born in the same period with Beauvoir redefines the beauty of a woman. The Mexico female artist likes to wear colorful clothes, not fashionable in style, but very bold. She also likes red lips and red nails, often making hair. Her "one" word eyebrow and the beard that did not conform to the femininity made her look very weird.And Freda Carol's tragic experience made her far away from the beauty of the traditional sense. At the age of 6, Carlo suffered from polio, which left her with a life-long defect: the right leg was shorter than the left leg. At the age of 18, she suffered a car accident, and her body was almost broken. After 35 operations, she left a serious sequelae. After the accident, Frida gave up medicine and began to draw. Among them, the self portrait occupies a large part. "I never draw a dream, I only paint my own truth." Frida did not beautify herself. She wants to be a complete person, not just a sweet wife, which makes her look more powerful.

What does it mean to be a woman? And what should we stick to in this bustling world? Across the ages, human nature is interlinked, and we are still waiting to solve all these questions. How to be a cool girl? How should we rebel all of these constraints from our parents, teachers, society and worldly conventions?

But no matter what, I still choose to rebel.