In 30 words or less, tell us what is great about a book you are reading at the moment. The best critique will be printed in the January issue of The Weekly and the writer will win The AWW Cooking School cookbook, valued at $74.95.
COCO CHANEL: THE LEGEND AND THE LIFEBy Justine Picardie, Harper Collins, $45.
The fashion legend has been the subject of countless books and films, but Chanel’s creations and her effortless, revolutionary sense of style have seduced her biographers, leaving the real Gabrielle, the feisty battler born in a poor house, an elusive albeit exquisitely clad cipher.
Justine Picardie spent a decade investigating Chanel and, while she salutes the guile and charm of her subject, starting with a detailed, spine-tingling journey through her chambers in Paris, she does a thorough job unearthing the truth behind Chanel’s often fantastical tales.
In her latter years, Chanel said she didn’t know “anything more terrifying than the family” and it’s no wonder. She was born in 1883, the illegitimate daughter of peddlers selling buttons and bonnets from town to town. Her father was mostly absent and her mother died, possibly of TB, but more likely from pneumonia and poor conditions, with Gabrielle pale and terrified by her sickbed. After this, she was raised by nuns in an orphanage, leaving at 18 for a life filled with thrillingly tempestuous, unconventional relationships and leaps into the world of couture.
What we see in this engrossing biography is that the secret to Chanel’s fashion is also the key to her life – she was a radical who ripped up the corset, created high fashion from pyjamas, men’s pants and brogues, and in her private life refused to let her lovers own or define her, defying the conventions of marriage or monogamy. Ironically, the result was to enhance her own feminine sensuality in her behaviour and her clothes.
Indeed, so much about Chanel is contrary. She was a recluse whose vast array of friends included Jean Cocteau, Stravinsky, Winston Churchill and Diaghilev. She was intrinsically French, yet her two most important lovers were Englishmen – Arthur “Boy” Capel and the second Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor. And while she loved and at times bewitched men, she also dabbled in relationships with women.
Chanel seems so much part of a bygone era it’s hard to believe she died as recently as 1971, when spandex and sequins were taking over the catwalks. Yet she was also ahead of her time. This extraordinary book is peppered with not just photographs of Chanel, but cartoons and sketches which underline her effect on the world. Will we see her like again? Probably not.
In 30 words or less, tell us what is great about a book you are reading at the moment. The best critique will be printed in the January issue of The Weekly and the writer will win The AWW Cooking School cookbook, valued at $74.95.
Please ensure you leave an email address you can be contacted on in order to be eligible for the prize.
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