Three books on Coco Chanel offer new insights, historical tangents and fictional tales
- Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto and Chanel’s Riviera focus on the factual, from the designer’s love of flowers to her wartime negotiations
- In historical novel The Chanel Sisters, Judithe Little introduces Antoinette, the youngest of the three Chanel girls
Non-fiction
Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto
edited by Miren Arzalluz and Véronique Belloir
Thames & Hudson
It’s been 50 years since her death, in 1971, aged 87, but Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s story continues to fill new books, including this illustrated volume, published to accompany a 2020 exhibition at the Palais Galliera in Paris, the first retrospective of her work ever held in the city.
Edited by the director and curator of that museum of fashion and fashion history, the essays within spotlight “The Many Chanels”. She regarded truth and lies with equal disdain, historian Olivier Saillard writes, adding that the business of herself was her only true raison d’être. Little wonder, then, that she chose models who resembled her and trained them to move and pose like her, hand on hip.
Fashion aficionados looking for new insights should read Amy dela Haye’s essay, which examines Chanel’s love of flowers (not just her signature camellia) and use of them in her work – perhaps unexpected in someone who rebuffed the frou-frou, masqueraded in men’s clothing, and generally rejected ornamentation. But in the 1930s, Chanel decorated her clothes and hair with flowers, and, in addition to accessorising with floral-inspired jewellery, scented herself with jasmine and rose.
We’re reintroduced to Chanel’s tailored suits, two-toned slingbacks, quilted handbag and other familiar staples representing her life and art of living. That extended to the style of her homes, although interior design was one of the few opportunities the grande dame never fully realised.
Chanel’s Riviera
by Anne de Courcy
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
