| Description |
1 online resource (xxii, 576 pages) : illustrations (some color) |
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text file rda |
| Contents |
Early life -- A new world -- Designing together : Coco Chanel and Arthur Edward "Boy" Capel -- Grand duke Dmitri -- My heart is in my pocket : Coco and Pierre Reverdy -- Women friends, mimetic contagion, and the Parisian Avant-garde -- Antigone in Vogue : Chanel costumes the Modernist stage -- Bendor : the richest man in Europe -- The patriotism of luxury : Chanel and Paul Iribe -- The pulse of history : Chanel, Fascism, and the interwar years -- Love, war, and espionage -- Showing them : Chanel returns. |
| Summary |
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 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 cafe 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. From the Hardcover edition. |
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A portrait of the fashion maven examines her critical place in history and the talents through which she internalized and transmitted cultural trends, offering insights into her creativity and business savvy. |
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"Little black dresses. Fake pearls. Jersey knit. Blazers. Ballet flats. Today--and for nearly the last hundred years--we all see some version of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel every time we pass a woman on the street. But few among us realize that Chanel's role in the events of the twentieth century was as pervasive as her influence on fashion, or how deeply she absorbed and then brilliantly reimagined the historical currents around her. Here, with unprecedented detail and ambition--and through fascinating, thoroughly researched portraits of Chanel's lovers and friends--Rhonda Garelick shows us the Chanel who conquered the world . . . a woman who thirsted to create others in her image, who ruthlessly and innovatively borrowed from her famous (and infamous) intimates, who understood the idea of branding and image well ahead of her time, who created "wearable personality." This is Chanel at the nexus of history: a woman of daring, passion, and legendary vision, in a wonderful biography that gives her long-awaited due"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 437-545) and index. |
| System Details |
Requires Boundless App. |
| Subject |
Chanel, Coco, 1883-1971.
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Chanel, Coco, 1883-1971. |
| Chronological Term |
1900-1999 |
| Subject |
Fashion designers -- France -- Biography.
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Fashion design -- History -- 20th century.
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Fashion design. |
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Fashion designers. |
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Art. |
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Biography & Autobiography. |
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History. |
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Nonfiction. |
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Overdrive -- Ebook.
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Overdrive -- Ebook -- Adult -- Biography.
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France. |
| Genre |
Electronic books. |
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Biography.
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History.
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| Other Form: |
Electronic reproduction of (manifestation): Garelick, Rhonda K., 1962- Mademoiselle New York : Random House, [2014] 9781400069521 (DLC) 2014006844 (OCoLC)868199582 |
| ISBN |
9780679604266 : $60.00 |
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067960426X : $60.00 |
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