Five Amazing Books on Coco Chanel
Books to Read This Holiday Season
As the holidays roll around, you might have a little bit more time to read and fully immerse yourself in a great story. This article gathers in one place the best books on Coco Chanel, high priestess of couture, whether it is a biography, a novel, a fashion history book or a Second World War book. Here is a top five list of great Chanel books to read at Christmas time.
1. Chanel’s Riviera by Anne de Courcy
Anne de Courcy states in her prologue that her book is neither a biography of Coco Chanel nor a history of the Riviera, as both themes have been explored in multiple books. The author just intended to tell the story of the fourteen years when Chanel summered on the Riviera.
The book begins with the story of her affair with and love for the Duke of Westminster, which came to an end in 1930. The book tells us why Chanel decided to buy a villa that would be her only real home and how she spent her time there.
It also gives an interesting glimpse of the lives of several famous and near-famous artists and writers. It is particularly intriguing to read about the time of King Edward VIII abdicating the throne and her wife, Wallis Simpson on the Riviera and about people’s opinions of them. The second part of the book focuses on the Riviera during the Second World War, and we learn that the French considered it practically unthinkable for German troops to breach the Maginot Line and to advance unstoppably towards the holiday paradise.
I recommend this book to everyone who is fond of history, likes reading historical fiction books and, last but not least, is interested in Chanel’s life.
2. Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life by Justine Picardie
The next book on the list is one of my absolute favourites. I purchased this book years ago and have read it multiple times, as I find it truly fascinating. Justine Picardie wrote a remarkably detailed Chanel biography in which she reveals her life before she became the name the world would come to know and her path to becoming one of the world’s true fashion greats. The book provides a useful insight into her early years, quotes her words from interviews with her, while exploring her life story based on several sources. The author’s attempt is all the more remarkable because Chanel fabricated her story by telling various versions of stories of her childhood.
The easy-to-read and well-written book provides a wealth of information not only about Chanel’s life but also about her friends and loves.
3. Mademoiselle Coco und der Duft der Liebe (“Mademoiselle Coco and the Scent of Love”) by Michelle Marly
The book is not specifically a biography but about the invention of the famous perfume Chanel No 5. Devastated by a personal tragedy, Chanel shut herself off from the world, then, after several endless months, she settled on creating a perfume and her newly found aim gave the mother of fashion new strength. The genre of the book is novel, it thus doesn’t pretend to be a true biography of Coco Chanel: it is based on a true story and real events but the dialogues in the book are fictional.
The writer has written several other biographical novels about famous women like Edith Piaf and Maria Callas. Marly’s latest book on Romy Schneider is soon to be published in Germany, the writer’s home country, but I hope that it will be available not only in German and French but also in English.
4. Mademoiselle Chanel by C.W. Gortner
The writer’s very name is a guarantee that it is a brilliantly written book that is a true delight to read. He has authored several biographical novels, including Marlene: A Novel of Marlene Dietrich, The Romanov Empress: A Novel of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna and The First Actress: A Novel of Sarah Bernhardt, which are all a good read.
Returning to Mademoiselle Chanel: A Novel, Gortner sketched a well-rounded read on the legendary Coco Chanel. The story is told by Chanel, in a first-person voice, recounting events from her perspective, which makes the reader feel as if she is telling her own life story. The book is the dramatized biography of Coco Chanel, which also clearly depicts prominent artists, composers and painters of the period who peopled her fabulous life. On the whole, this book is not only a biographical novel but also a sort of period sketch.
5. Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War by Hal Vaughan
Sleeping with the Enemy is one of the most controversial books on Coco Chanel, which details her life during the Second World War era. The explosive narrative is intriguing because it is still disputed whether Chanel was a Nazi collaborator during the war or worked for Germany’s military intelligence agency just to save her nephew. It is a known fact that she had a long love affair with Hans Günther von Dincklage, a Nazi master spy and agent known as “Spatz” (sparrow) with whom she escaped to and lived in Switzerland after the Second World War.
The meticulously researched book reveals her activities and associations, citing recently de-classified documents. (Suffice it to say, the book doesn’t exactly cast the fashion designer in a sympathetic light.)
The book is regarded as controversial because it has triggered a strong dislike of Chanel in many readers. It is utterly impossible today to find out the whole truth, but I believe that it is useful to read widely around a subject from different perspectives in order to be better placed to judge the truth or what is close as possible to reality. Since Mademoiselle Chanel was the only one who knew the full truth.
