Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life - Hardcover

Picardie, Justine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061963852 ISBN 13: 9780061963858

Publisher: It Books, 2010

Synopsis

In Coco Chanel, Justine Picardie peels away the layers of romance and myth surrounding the legend of Coco Chanel, revealing the true history of the incredible woman who shaped modern fashion and created an empire of haute couture. Picardie's unprecedented research illuminates Chanel’s path from little-known seamstress to the aristocracy of style in this stunning look at the fashion icon, illustrated with more than sixty color and black-and-white images.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Sleek. Chic. Notoriously guarded. Welcome to the secret world of Gabrielle Chanel.

The story of Chanel begins with an abandoned child, as lost as a girl in a dark fairy tale. Unveiling remarkable new details about Gabrielle Chanel's early years in a convent orphanage, and her flight into unconventional adulthood, Justine Picardie explores what lies beneath the glossy surface of a mythic fashion icon.

Throwing new light on her passionate and turbulent relationships, this beautifully constructed portrait gives a fresh and penetrating look at how Coco Chanel made herself into her own most powerful creation. An authoritative account, based on personal observations and interviews with Chanel's last surviving friends, employees, and relatives, it also unravels her coded language and symbols, and traces the influence of her formative years on her legendary style.

Feared and revered by the rest of the fashion industry, Coco Chanel died in 1971 at the age of eighty-seven. But her legacy lives on. Justine Picardie brings Gabrielle Chanel out of hiding and uncovers the consequences of what Chanel covered up, unpicking the seams between truth and myth in a story that reveals the true heart of fashion.

About the Author:

The author of five books, including her critically acclaimed memoir, If the Spirit Moves You, and the novel Daphne, Justine Picardie is the former features director of British Vogue and editor of the Observer magazine. She is a fashion columnist for the Sunday Telegraph and writes for several other publications, including Harper’s Bazaar and the Times of London. She lives in London with her two sons.

About this edition

• Publisher: It Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061963852
• ISBN 13: 9780061963858
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352