COCO CHANEL: An Intimate Life

Lisa Chaney

Penguin Group Inc., New York, USA

Year 2011

Pages 502

In this book the author tells the controversial story of the fashion icon who starred in her tumultuous era. Coco Chanel was many things to many people. Raised in emotional and financial poverty, she became one of the defining figures of the 20th century. She was mistress to aristocrats, artists and spies. She broke rules of style and decorum, seducing both men and women, yet in her work expected the highest standards. She took a ‘plaything’ and turned it into a global industry which defined the modern woman. Filled with new insights and thrilling discoveries, the author’s Chanel provides the most defining and provocative portrait yet. Her research is laudable, uncovering fresh details of Chanel’s well-trodden rag trade to riches story ‘Evening Standard’.