Born into rural poverty, Gabrielle Chanel and her siblings are sent to orphanage after their mother’s death. The sisters nurture Gabrielle’s exceptional sewing skills, a talent that will propel the willful young woman into a life far removed from the drudgery of her childhood. This book is a fascinating journey through the life of one true muse of our time. She was the inspiration for so many artists and women and men of great talent, and she had an amazing life, full of relations with the most dazzling intellectuals and cultural icons of her time.

You can’t really understand Chanel without understanding Dior, and you can’t really understand Dior without understanding Chanel, in terms of French history,” Picardie says. “I’ve never stopped being interested in the life and work of Gabrielle Chanel. She’s endlessly fascinating, but because there were so many mysteries surrounding her that I’d never stopped looking into.” This isnt an easy book to read, mostly because at times the author seems lost on which direction to take, so quotes from everyone who knew her pop up all over the place, slowing down the pace and making one a tiny bit bored..however Coco´s life is fascinating and draws you in so much that u can forget the style of writting. Chanel is already the subject of many published studies, and next weekend also sees the opening of a major Victoria & Albert Museum retrospective in advance of the launch later this year of the Apple TV+ drama series The New Look, starring Juliette Binoche, which will chart her rivalry with fellow French designer Christian Dior. British writer Justine Picardie is bringing out an updated edition of her biography of Chanel, The Legend and the Life, to include new claims that, while close to rightwing figures, the designer may have worked for the French resistance. But Berryman’s film paints a wider picture of a survivor and organic intellect more than capable of such political and personal intrigue. There is little simple about Coco Chanel. She was born Gabrielle Chanel on 19 August 1883 – a date that she later changed by hand in her passport. Gabrielle Chanel was born in a poorhouse; her parents were unmarried and, according to Chanel, her mother Jeanne died of tuberculosis when Chanel was aged six. Justine Picardie suggests that Jeanne died of ‘poverty, pregnancy and pneumonia’ when Chanel was aged 11. According to Chanel, her father left her in the care of two unmarried aunts when he actually placed her in a convent orphanage in the village of Aubazine, where she was raised by nuns.This book gives a very honest picture of Chanel as both as artist and a person. I used to study fashion so I did know quite a bit about her prior to reading this book but I definitely learned a lot more. It’s very indepth. As well as talking about Chanel, the author gives fantastic overviews of the time periods and the attitudes especially in relation to fashion which were popular then. It also gives an interesting glimpse of the lives of several famous and near-famous artists and writers. It is particularly intriguing to read about the time of King Edward VIII abdicating the throne and her wife, Wallis Simpson on the Riviera and about people’s opinions of them. The second part of the book focuses on the Riviera during the Second World War, and we learn that the French considered it practically unthinkable for German troops to breach the Maginot Line and to advance unstoppably towards the holiday paradise. Her success makes it hard to believe the first hand reports about Chanel's drug use. The number of sources and their close relationships with Chanel make them credible. That Reverdy, a lover who in 1924 left Chanel citing her addiction as a reason, means that she functioned as an addict for almost 50 years. What really surprised me was that she was this fashionable young woman in the 1920s, and even before her marriage to Prince Albert, who would become George VI, she was wearing Chanel, and then there were other members of the royal family that were wearing Chanel. Even Queen Mary,” Picardie says. “We think of Chanel as being so associated wholly with Paris and that idea of Parisian chic. But [Chanel] was so famous by the 1920s, and obviously she had become famous in America too. But the fact that she was dressing members of the British royal family and the British aristocracy is very interesting and is completely new.” Berryman’s Arena film, Coco Chanel Unbuttoned, broadcast this Friday on BBC2, ties together her life’s extraordinary contradictions to explain how an abandoned child came to shape the tastes of the 20th century and then to risk her freedom and reputation in the world of politics.

The name Coco Chanel is synonymous with style. But what of the woman behind the name: what do we know about the woman who designed simple yet sophisticated clothes, practical but elegant bags and shoes, and presented Chanel No 5 perfume to the world? Chaney helps you understand Chanel, sometimes through Chanel's very own words. Throughout the book there are revealing quotes about her loneliness and the need to compromise with men for their love. She seems to have understood herself and her times. Antoinette and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel know they’re destined for something better. Abandoned by their family years before, they’ve grown up under the guidance of pious nuns preparing them for simple lives as the wives of tradesmen or shopkeepers. At night, their secret stash of romantic novels and magazine cutouts beneath the floorboards are all they have to keep their dreams of the future alive. Lisa Chaney suggests that Arthur Capel may have committed suicide. I had wondered this, since the accounts of the accident, and the film portrayal of the scene would suggest whiplash and not a burned body. From the newly discovered letters, and his continuing relationship with Chanel after his marriage, he was under enormous strain.

Chanel's circle includes some of those in the Hemingway-Fitzgerald orbit, but, in this book, these American ex-pats hardly figure. There is only one mention of the Fitzgerald's, a passing reference at that. Justine Picardie has spent the last decade puzzling over the truth about Coco Chanel, attempting to peel away the accretions of romance and lies. In this critically acclaimed, bestselling biography she shares the history of the incredible woman who created the way we look now. Chanel as always been - and will remain - an enigma, no matter how many attempts are made, book or movie form, no one will ever get a real understanding of the woman behind the myth. haute couture. Изискват се и умения. Такъв тип писане в рамките на една по-дълга статия е много релаксиращо изживяване, доста светско. В рамките на цяла книга обаче ужасно натежава и досажда. With several decades of work devoted to Chanel’s life, Picardie is clearly personally interested in her —but she remains constantly surprised by how much broad intrigue there is into Chanel’s life.

To tell the truth, with the progress of human civilization and the improvement of the level of science and technology, the status of women in the society has gradually improved. Chanel herself is a good example，she also is a role model for all the woman in that time，Chanel is once again a fashion legend, not just for the brand, but for herself. People slowly found something good of this brand and Chanel： beauty, stubborn, passionate, cold…In fact, after world war II, many people regard Chanel as a role model because of her financial independence, she is different from other women, the everything she have is her accumulation for whole life. Further indication that Chanel could have been considered a wartime allied “asset” is provided by her mysterious early release from arrest as a collaborator after the liberation of Paris. Her old friendship with Winston Churchill, formed on the grouse moors of Britain, during the decade she lived with the Duke of Westminster,offers a plausible answer, claims the documentary. Churchill once described Chanel as “fit to rule a man and an empire”. I absolutely detested the narration of the audiobook (by Carole Boyd)! As usual, my star rating is based on the content of the written book, not the narration. I am not lowering the stars for the narration. I detest the dramatics with which the lines are read. Boyd plays with accents. Her French is impeccable - I am talking about the pronunciation of French words and names and places - but the tone she uses is highbrow and downright snobbish. Stuffy! The only accent I enjoyed was that she used for the American characters. Others may like that she uses different tones for different nationalities, but since most is in this fake French tone, it drove me absolutely crazy. I like narrators to just slowly and clearly read the text. I don't want to hear the voice but rather the content of the author’s lines. That is me, maybe you are different.

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. 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. These are photos with her jewelry designer, also with Dali and other personalities. I couldn’t help to notice that she smoked during all her long life. That was probably a contributing factor for her demise at 87 (just joking!) Here are pictures of some of her love interests, and there is one of one of her “competitors” in the business of finding the love of her life. To understand Chanel you have to consider the actual childhood and the childhood she imagined and the power of her first experience of being in love. Arthur Capel and Chanel were in love but her common roots and her growing success made the aristocratic Diana Wyndham a safer choice. His life, his views expressed through his writing, his success and her youth make his marriage and his death defining moments for Chanel. Subsequent liaisons could never measure up/ The men that possibly could have filled his shoes seemed to want to compete with her as she became more and more successful.