Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of HistoryNATIONAL BESTSELLER Certain lives are at once so exceptional, and yet so in step with their historical moments, that they illuminate cultural forces far beyond the scope of a single person. Such is the case with Coco Chanel, whose life offers one of the most fascinating tales of the twentieth century—throwing into dramatic relief an era of war, fashion, ardent nationalism, and earth-shaking change—here brilliantly treated, for the first time, with wide-ranging and incisive historical scrutiny. Coco Chanel transformed forever the way women dressed. Her influence remains so pervasive that to this day we can see her afterimage a dozen times while just walking down a single street: in all the little black dresses, flat shoes, costume jewelry, cardigan sweaters, and tortoiseshell eyeglasses on women of every age and background. A bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume is sold every three seconds. Arguably, no other individual has had a deeper impact on the visual aesthetic of the world. But how did a poor orphan become a global icon of both luxury and everyday style? How did she develop such vast, undying influence? And what does our ongoing love of all things Chanel tell us about ourselves? These are the mysteries that Rhonda K. Garelick unravels in Mademoiselle. Raised in rural poverty and orphaned early, the young Chanel supported herself as best she could. Then, as an uneducated nineteen-year-old café singer, she attracted the attention of a wealthy and powerful admirer and parlayed his support into her own hat design business. For the rest of Chanel’s life, the professional, personal, and political were interwoven; her lovers included diplomat Boy Capel; composer Igor Stravinsky; Romanov heir Grand Duke Dmitri; Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster; poet Pierre Reverdy; a Nazi officer; and several women as well. For all that, she was profoundly alone, her romantic life relentlessly plagued by abandonment and tragedy. Chanel’s ambitions and accomplishments were unparalleled. Her hat shop evolved into a clothing empire. She became a noted theatrical and film costume designer, collaborating with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Luchino Visconti. The genius of Coco Chanel, Garelick shows, lay in the way she absorbed the zeitgeist, reflecting it back to the world in her designs and in what Garelick calls “wearable personality”—the irresistible and contagious style infused with both world history and Chanel’s nearly unbelievable life saga. By age forty, Chanel had become a multimillionaire and a household name, and her Chanel Corporation is still the highest-earning privately owned luxury goods manufacturer in the world. In Mademoiselle, Garelick delivers the most probing, well-researched, and insightful biography to date on this seemingly familiar but endlessly surprising figure—a work that is truly both a heady intellectual study and a literary page-turner. Praise for Mademoiselle “A detailed, wry and nuanced portrait of a complicated woman that leaves the reader in a state of utterly satisfying confusion—blissfully mesmerized and confounded by the reality of the human spirit.”—The Washington Post “Writing an exhaustive biography of Chanel is a challenge comparable to racing a four-horse chariot. . . . This makes the assured confidence with which Garelick tells her story all the more remarkable.”—The New York Review of Books “Broadly focused and beautifully written.”—The Wall Street Journal |
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Love the gold
User Review - Shauvon Y. - Overstock.comPretty & classic looks great on table. It is a thick book so make sure thats what your wanting. I picked it because of the gold accent which looks good for decor but I wish it was a little thinner Read full review
Very informative.
User Review - Charlene G. - Overstock.comA really good read. It brings you back to interesting time periods. It took me awhile to finish the book because I got hook to reading other important details of a specific time period. Its a well researched book which details interesting information. Read full review
Contents
CHAPTER 1 | |
CHAPTER 2 | |
Afterword | |
Acknowledgments | |
A New World | |
Grand Duke Dmitri | |
Coco and Pierre Reverdy | |
Chanel Costumes the Modernist Stage | |
The Richest Man in Europe | |
CHAPTER 9 | |
Illustration Credits | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adrienne aesthetic American André Antigone Antoinette archives aristocratic Aubazine Ballets Russes Balsan beautiful Bendor Boy Capel Boy’s Charles-Roux Chazot Churchill Claude Delay clothes Coco Chanel Coco’s costumes couture Deauville designed Diaghilev Diana Dior Dmitri Diaries dress Duchess duke’s Editions Edmonde Charles-Roux famous Fascism fashion father February Fiemeyer France France’s French friends Gabrielle Chanel Gabrielle Palasse-Labrunie Galante German girls Grand Duke Henry Hughes Wilson Hitler Ibid illustration credit interview Iribe Iribe’s Jacques Jean Cocteau Jews Justine Picardie knew L’Allure de Chanel Lady Lagerfeld later lived London look lover Mademoiselle Chanel Madsen Maison Chanel Marcel Haedrich Marie Marquand married Misia Misia Sert Nazi never Palasse Paris Paul Iribe Paul Morand Pausa perfume Pierre Reverdy Pierre Wertheimer political Quoted in Haedrich Rasputin Ritz Royallieu Russian Schellenberg Sert social style told University Press Vichy Vilmorin Vogue Walter Schellenberg Wertheimers who’d woman women Women’s Wear Daily wrote York young
Bibliographic information
| Title | Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History |
| Author | Rhonda K. Garelick |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Random House Publishing Group, 2014 |
| ISBN | 067960426X, 9780679604266 |
| Length | 608 pages |
| Subjects | › › Biography & Autobiography / Fashion Design / Fashion & Accessories History / Modern / 20th Century |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |