HEAVEN HELL & MADEMOISELLE BY HAROLD CARLTON, ORION, $32.99.
If you’d like to take a mental break from your world in Australia 2010, take a visit to the fashion world of Paris in turbulent 1968.
Heaven Hell & Mademoiselle markets itself as “the love child of Sex And The City and The Devil Wears Prada” and, while it’s unlikely to ever become the phenomenon of either of its parents, it is a charming diversion.
The story follows four fashion hopefuls as they make their way as seamstress, model, designer and publicist. Coco Chanel spends her last days popping in and out of their lives, an elegant but bitter and lonely icon. This is a book to take on holiday, or to escape the everyday.