Chanel and Her World (Hardcover)

by Edmonde Charles-Roux (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
If style never goes out of fashion, then a biography of Coco Chanel shouldn't either. First published 25 years ago and out of print for the last decade, Charles-Roux's book was originally all black and white, but large color photos and illustrations have been added for this reissue, and the layout has been redesigned as well. (The text remains the same.) As a former editor-in-chief of French Vogue for 12 years and a longtime friend of Chanel, Charles-Roux collected a lot of photos of the fashion icon and of those allowed into her inner circle. She shares many of them in this massive biography, which follows Chanel's journey from her birth on August 20, 1883, to her days as a shop girl in Moulins to her triumph in, and transformation of, the fashion world. The book also provides insight into how Chanel's style developed and how its evolution was related to her defiance of the social conventions of her time; Coco was a great friend of the Cubists and she shared many of their avante-garde tastes. Charles-Roux's analysis may occasionally have more style than substance, but this balance would hardly have bothered Chanel, for whom style was always everything. And with a Chanel exhibition coming up at the Metropolitan Museum in May, 2005, it seems unlikely that this book will every be out of print for so long again.
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Product Description
Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883-1971) is a fashion icon unlike any other. She invented modern clothing for women: at the height of the Belle Époque, she stripped women of their corsets and feathers, bobbed their hair, put them in bathing suits, and sent them out to get tanned in the sun. She introduced slacks, costume jewelry, and the exquisitely comfortable suit. She made the first couture perfume-No. 5-which remains the most popular scent ever created.

In this beautiful volume, the glorious life of the incomparable Coco Chanel shines again through hundreds of illustrations and the lively prose of Edmonde Charles-Roux, her official biographer and close friend. Chanel knew and collaborated with the likes of Picasso, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Cocteau, Jean Renoir, and Visconti-even as she matched their modernist innovations by liberating women from the prison of 19th-century fashion and introducing a whole new concept of elegance. The staggering collection of photographs amassed by the over decades of friendship with Chanel sheds new light on one of the great stories of the modern age. AUTHOR BIO: Edmonde Charles-Roux began her journalistic career at Elle and ultimately became editor-in-chief of French Vogue. She has published three novels, among them To Forget Palermo (Oublier Palerme), which won the Prix Goncourt in 1966.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Vendome Press (March 9, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865651590
• ISBN-13: 978-0865651593
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,496 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A designer of authentic beauty, May 25, 2006

By	Mary Jo Magar (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a substantial book in both size and pictorial content.

As an ideal complement to the Metropolitan Museum's Chanel exhibit last spring (2005), this book actually exceeds - and outlasts - the exhibit itself.

More than just an intelligent, fascinating woman, Chanel was a fascinating opportunist in the way that she manipulated and transformed the trends of her times (and many men of her times), turning them to her advantage. She was as much a businesswoman and social and cultural politician as a fashion designer, and to see her in this book's big, beautiful photographs, modeling her own creations, is an inspiration to any woman who disbelieves that humble beginnings and a less than conventionally perfect countenance can lead to high achievement.

The best photograph of all - the photograph that tells all - graces the book's cover: one look at that face of intelligence, intensity, self-composure, and elegance, and one knows what the book is all about (philosophically as well as biographically) even before opening it.

The classic Chanel endures as a legend and lesson in the achievement of authentic beauty, i.e., defined by compelling creation rather than passive, taken-for-granted standards of acceptance.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please bring this book back!, July 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Chanel and Her World (Hardcover)

*Chanel and Her World* is a great document of a great woman! I've never seen another Chanel book with so many pictures, and that's what it's all about when it comes to one of the century's most important style-makers. It's a CRIME that it's out of print, because I MUST OWN IT.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Big Beautiful World of Chanel, April 18, 2005

By	Linda Painchaud-Steinman "PARK EDGE BOOKS" (MA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Visually pleasing and well-written, here is a book that would surely please Mademoiselle Chanel if she were still with us.

Fans of Chanel and "Fashionistas" alike will undoubtedly be delighted with this big, beautiful book and its vast number of Chanel photos, which document Coco's personal world of fashion.

Linda Painchaud-Steinman, Park Edge Books