Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life
£20.90£25.70 (-19%)
Justine Picardie spent years puzzling over the truth about Coco Chanel, peeling away the accretions of romance and lies. Since its publication in 2010, hers has become the definitive Chanel biography. With a new foreword and previously unseen images, this new edition delves even deeper into the life and legacy of this eternally alluring woman.
Coco Chanel was an extraordinary inventor – she conjured up the little black dress, bobbed hair, trousers for women, contemporary chic, best-selling perfumes, and the most successful fashion brand of all time – but she also invented herself, fashioning the myth of her own life with the same dexterity as her couture.
While Chanel was supreme innovator and vendor of all things elegant and beautiful, what lies beneath her own glossy myth is far darker. Throwing new light on her passionate and turbulent relationships, this beautifully constructed portrait gives a fresh and penetrating look at how Coco Chanel made herself into her own most powerful creation.
Justine Picardie brings the mysterious Gabrielle Chanel out of hiding, to celebrate her great achievements. She examines Chanel’s enduring afterlife, as well as her remarkable life, uncovering the consequences of what she covered up, unpicking the seams between truth and legend, yet keeping intact the real fabric of her past.
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | HarperCollins, New edition (29 Jun. 2017) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 368 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0007318995 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0007318995 |
| Reading age | 13 years and up |
| Dimensions | 16.3 x 3.1 x 22.8 cm |
by gmn
Good book but took a while to get into it. It was a little dry.
by Ms. Mary Smith
I think this is an excellent biography of Chanel and Justine Picardie has done a remarkable job in writing such a comprehensive, and very readable, account of her achievements. And those achievements are truly remarkable – from being an abandoned child to leading designer of the fashion world – the little black dress, the perfume, the handbag, the little suit. From being a seamstress to mingling with the great and the good (and sometimes the bad) such as Winston Churchill, Jackie Kennedy, Nijinsky, the Duke of Westminster, one of her long-term lovers, and many more famous characters. I liked the ways she seemed always to remain on good terms with her ex-lovers.
Chanel invented many versions of her own story and Picardie clearly went to great lengths to research this biography and to tease out (as far as it is ever possible to do) the truth from Chanel’s fictions. I feel Chanel still remains something of an enigma ,as though she lets no one, regardeless of how hard they try, quite get to the essence of her. I also felt there was a huge sadness in her despite her spectacular successes. She changed the way women dressed and thought about themselves, in a way male fashion designers never did.
This is an absolutely fascinating account and beautifully produced book with lots of photographs (wish they could have been bigger), many never published before and illustrations. Reviewed by Mary Smith author of
No More Mulberries
by Culture Enthusiast
The book is very well researched by the author.The first chapter is quite slow as it starts by referring to the different versions of her life that Chanel provided to people. Chanel was born in a poor family, the father disappearing after her mother gave birth to her sister and to her. When the mother died Gabrielle was just 11 and it is likely that she and her siblings were left in the house with the dead body for a few days whilst her father was missing. The father returned and quickly dropped Gabrielle and the sisters to an orphanage. These events will accompany Chanel for her entire life, leading her to have nightmares also during the latest days of her life. Times at the orphanage were grim, with no love and sense of abandonment. Chanel admitted that she thought about committing suicide. She left the orphanage at 18 and moved with the grandparents. Life was not a happy ride. She left her grandparents house and went to live with a playboy with whom she was having an affair: she had no money, women did not have rights of any kind at the time and she became the lover of this man. She met the love of her life, Boy and moved in with him. She did not find happiness though: he was unfaithful and more interested in expanding the family business and marry into the aristocracy.
The story of Gabrielle Chanel is surrounded by drama, affairs, betrayal. She was a great business woman, who was well ahead of her times. At the same time she looked ruthless, with the dark shadow of abandonment that followed her continuously.
Chanel was making up stories to cover up her unhappyness and sadness, she spoke about growing up with aunts (instead of nuns in the orphanage) and twisted events. She manipulated people and was manipulated by them. She became a living legend but has never accomplished the most important thing that was to find peace. Extremely sad story of a truly remarkable woman. I do not like her, even if I sympathise with her personal drama and the choices that she made considering the odds were against her for being a woman and wanting to be independent. I particularly loathe the choices she made in murky times when she tried to use the anti semitic laws to get her hands on the perfume business that she co-owned with the Bourjois owners and the cynicism of cutting out completely her family that was in need (she became a multimillionaire thanks to her business and perfume royalties) show how unpleasant she was as an individual – true she had a hard childhood but money clearly cannot buy happiness. She died alone in Paris, surrounded by servants and her jewels but no real love.
by Scribe Dublin
This book relies too heavily on interviews Coco Chanel gave to other people, nonetheless it’s good and informative. It’s also repetitious and we hear about her coromandel screens (aways spelt with a capital C) at least five times!
The negatives out of the way, it’s worth reading. I learned a lot about her life and her insecurities, her loves and her conquests, her politics and how she manipulated people and situations to her advantage.
I don’t particularly like her, but I do empathize with the rejections she suffered, her confused and confusing childhood, and I have to admire her amazing successes. Coco Chanel, whoever she was, overcame a lot and has more than earned her place in social history.
by R. Vakrat
It took me a while to decide on the rating I should give this book. It is an interesting well written book.. So why three stars?
When I was looking for a book about Chanel I was looking to find information and inspiration, as a young professional woman, a designer in a male dominated industry I wanted to hear her voice, to understand her creative vision, to learn more about her business decisions and how a woman from a plane background managed to create an empire in an era when women had to fight for the right to do business. I found very little of this in the book. It is a book about a woman who lived in an interesting times and had romantic affairs with interesting men.. I think it does not do her justice. She is not famous today for having an affair with Duke of Westminster or a Russian Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. She is famous today for building a Fashion Empire. But after reading this book you might mistakenly think that fashion was secondary, tiny part of her life while her main occupation was looking for the next high profile lover jumping from one scandal to another. My feeling after reading this book is one of a miss.
If you have a recommendation of a book about her that speaks more about her business acumen and creative vision please leave a note in the comments.
by Philip Gray
Chanel was an incredible lady and a force of nature throughout her life. Her life was the story of someone who knew what she wanted and changed the nature of what it was to be a woman.
Imagine walking through the corridors of 31 Rue Cabon and meeting this iconic figure who made her mark in the ????