LitArk » Books » Non-fiction

Chanel Coco - Coco Chanel an intimate life

Here you can read online Chanel Coco - Coco Chanel an intimate life full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. City: New York;France, year: 2011, publisher: Viking Adult, genre: Non-fiction. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Book:
Coco Chanel an intimate life
Author:
Chanel Coco / Chaney Lisa
Publisher:
Viking Adult
Genre:
Books / Non-fiction
Year:
2011
City:
New York;France
Rating:
3 / 5
Favourites:
Add to favourites
Your mark:
- 60
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5

Description
Author's other books
Similar books

Coco Chanel an intimate life: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Coco Chanel an intimate life" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

The controversial story of Chanel, the twentieth centurys foremost fashion icon.

Revolutionizing womens dress, Gabrielle Coco Chanel was the twentieth centurys most influential designer. Her extraordinary and unconventional journey-from abject poverty to a new kind of glamour- helped forge the idea of modern woman.

Unearthing an astonishing life, this remarkable biography shows how, more than any previous designer, Chanel became synonymous with a rebellious and progressive style. Her numerous liaisons, whose poignant and tragic details have eluded all previous biographers, were the very stuff of legend. Witty and mesmerizing, she became muse, patron, or mistress to the centurys most celebrated artists, including Picasso, Dal, and Stravinsky.

Drawing on newly discovered love letters and other records, Chaneys controversial book reveals the truth about Chanels drug habit and lesbian affairs. And the question about Chanels German lover during World War II (was he a spy for the Nazis?) is definitively answered.

While uniquely highlighting the designers far-reaching influence on the modern arts, Chaneys fascinating biography paints a deeper and darker picture of Coco Chanel than any so far. Movingly, it explores the origins, the creative power, and the secret suffering of this exceptional and often misread woman.

About the Author

Lisa Chaney is the author most recently of Hide and Seek with Angels: A Life of J. M. Barrie. She formerly taught at Oxford, has broadcast on the history of culture for British TV and radio, and has written for newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent. She currently lives in York, England.

Library : General
Formats : EPUB
ISBN : 0670023094

Chanel Coco: author's other books

Who wrote Coco Chanel an intimate life? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Coco Chanel an intimate life — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Coco Chanel an intimate life" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Table of Contents

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Published in 2011 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Published in Great Britain as Chanel: An Intimate Life by Fig Tree, an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd.

Illustration credits appear on page 430.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chaney, Lisa.

Coco Chanel : an intimate life / Lisa Chaney.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN : 978-1-101-54586-7

1. Chanel, Coco, 1883-1971. 2. Fashion designersFranceBiography. 3. Women fashion designersFranceBiography. I. Title.

TT505.C45C456 2011

746.92092dc23

[B]

2011026497

Set in Warnock Pro

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

http://us.penguingroup.com

For Anna

(And in memory of our mother, Elizabeth [19232009])

Capel said, Remember that youre a woman.

All too often I forgot that.

INTRODUCTION

Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel was a woman of singular character, intelligence and imagination. These attributes enabled her to survive a childhood of deprivation and neglect and reinvent herself to become one of the most influential women of her century. Unlike any previous female couturier, her own life quickly became synonymous with the revolutionary style that made her name. But dress was only the most visible aspect of more profound changes Gabrielle Chanel would help to bring about. During the course of an extraordinary and unconventional journeyfrom abject poverty to the invention of a new kind of glamourshe helped to forge the idea of modern woman.

Leaving behind her youth of incarceration in religious institutions, Gabrielle became a shop assistant in a town thronging with well-to-do young military men from the regiments stationed on its perimeter. She then threw away any chance of respectability by becoming mistress to one of them, and over the years her numerous subsequent liaisons were much talked about. Her relationship with Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich was a remarkable reflection of changing times, while that with the fabulously wealthy Duke of Westminster was the stuff of legend. Her love affair with one of Europes most eligible men, the enigmatic playboy Arthur Capel, enabled her to flourish, but would end in tragedy.

Aside from her dark beauty, Gabrielle was described as witty, strange, and mesmerizing. She would become the muse, patron, collaborator or mistress of a number of remarkable men, including some of the most celebrated artists of modern times. These included: Picasso, Cocteau, Stravinsky, Visconti, Dal and Diaghilev. In addition, Gabrielle rose to the highest echelons of society; created an empire; acquired the conviction that money adds to the decorative pleasures of life, but it is not life; became a quintessential twentieth-century celebrity and was transformed into a myth in her own lifetime.

To those already interested in her, the general outline of her life is well-known. Gabrielles story is one of drama and pathos, and I had become intrigued, though I doubted that there was much left to discover. Her first biographer, Edmonde Charles-Roux, appeared to have found all that the passage of time and Gabrielles concealment of her past would permit. Subsequent biographers had accepted this state of affairs, and thus various periods in her life remained unknown. My interest had been caught, thoughamong other things, by the variety and caliber of artists whom she had known, artists instrumental in the creation of modernism in early twentieth-century bohemian Paris. Simply retelling the rags-to-riches narrative and listing the sartorial changes she is credited with inventing dont do justice to a woman who played a part in the formation of the modern world, not only its clothes but its culture.

As I became more familiar with her story, the gaps grew more tantalizing. While that first biographical interpretation had stamped itself upon the general perception of the woman who became Coco Chanel, intuition told me things were subtly different. She left behind few letters and no diaries. Believing, nevertheless, that I might be able to turn up some new details, I embarked on early reconnaissance. Little did I know then the trails I was to follow and the raft of discoveries I would be fortunate enough to make over the next four years. As these new elements of her story gradually fell into place, more light was in turn thrown on Gabrielles character.

Her dreadful childhood was obviously critical, but while her own version shifted like the sands, I found treasures once I had learned how to filter her storytelling. Gabrielle often tells us as much about herself in what she left out or altered as in what she chooses to reveal. Approaching her from a peripheral viewpoint was also fruitful. Had so-and-so known her? If so, what had been written up in his or her diaries or letters? One line here, another there in a letter or an interview became crucial to the expanding story.

I traveled to Ireland to meet Michel Don, who had spent a great deal of time with Gabrielle sixty years before. As a successful young novelist he had been commissioned to write her biography. I returned with no new facts but something more important. Michel Don had regaled me with anecdotes, interspersed with the sharpest of observations. At the same time his compassion for her was instrumental in the development of my ability to comprehend her lifelong emotional plight. Her vulnerability was largely concealed, but it contributed to her isolation.

The reminiscences of those who had known her were invaluable, but other sources were also critical. An introduction to the American Russianist William Lee, for example, brought about his translations of a number of Duke Dmitri Pavlovichs diary entries, sent to me via installments over several weeks. These have revised our understanding of Dmitri and Gabrielles affair. They reveal quite a different relationship from the one traditionally described, which has Gabrielle the man-eater being mooned over by the young aristocrat.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Coco Chanel an intimate life»

Look at similar books to Coco Chanel an intimate life. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Rose Sgueglia

The Real Coco Chanel

Paul Morand

The Allure of Chanel

Linda Simon

Coco Chanel

Karen Karbo

The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the Worlds Most Elegant Woman

Axel Madsen

Chanel: A Woman of Her Own

Megan Hess

Coco Chanel

Chanel Coco

Sleeping with the enemy: Coco Chanels secret war

Susan Goldman Rubin

Coco Chanel: Pearls, Perfume, and the Little Black Dress

Zena Alkayat

Coco Chanel: An Illustrated Biography

Rhonda K. Garelick

Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

Justine Picardie

Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life

Lisa Chaney

Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life

Reviews about «Coco Chanel an intimate life»

Discussion, reviews of the book Coco Chanel an intimate life and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.