Customer Reviews

Chanel and Her World

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

*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.

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

I was looking for a book showing photos of Chanel's clothing designs and styles. This book focuses more on her life and the celebrities and cultural/social trends of her era (spanning 1910's - 1950's), so if you are looking to see her clothing styles and designs, you will be disappointed as there isn't that much coverage of the actual clothing. However, it is a very absorbing, encyclopedic, pictorial collection of the people of Chanel's time and you can spend many a lazy Sunday afternoon thoroughly exploring les temps perdus. There are many many pictures of Coco Chanel - like Madonna, she looks different every few years, a real chameleon. It retails at $65, so the $37 Amazon price is a good deal. It is a heavy thick book with glossy pages.

Mademoiselle Chanel was quite a woman. She totally invented herself, she was her best creation. This book does a fine job of showing off the clothes that made her famous and also offers many pictures of the singular Coco. The layout of the book is unique and took some getting use to, but it is informative and quite interesting. It is amazing all the men she was reportedly engaged with, she was not what one would call beautiful, but the woman had style and she knew knew how to work powerful men, a priceless talent in her day and unfortunitely to this day. Really a very good book on an amazing woman.

I paid almost full price for this book and I don't regret it. I found this coffee table book just lovely.

I am not a fashion expert. I'm just a reader interested in interesting people, so I was looking for a book on CHANEL that gave a brief background on her life and photos of Coco and some of her fashions. Well, this book seemed to fit the bill---for me. I was not disappointed.

I have enjoyed this book very much and it sits on my living room table , ----for the book to be browsed by others.

I was disappointed in the text. I guess from the title I should have expected some world history. The story line is somewhat incoherent and doesn't seem to present her life very well. I had to use the index to find a couple lines of reference to her "Boy", a romance started in the story and then dropped, only to be finished much later and with no real detail. Either Chanel was very closed mouth about a lot of her life or the author didn't know her that well. Also, there are a lot of pictures of rather irrelevant items. I wouldn't purchase it again.

Not only beautifully written, it gives you a perfect picture of a fascinating era and a fascinating woman. In a way Chanel lived ahead of her time, on the other hand she had a perfect sense how to translate that into the time she was living. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

the book came in new condition. it is an excellent read and full of gorgeous, vivid pictures painting the image of the life and times of Chanel. beautifully written and thorough. if you are a fan of the reknown designer or not, you will be after you read through the biography of her life well written by Edmonde Charles-Roux. a book to pass down to your children or to keep for your own private library to read over and over again.

I read this book from cover to cover in about three days, and it's a big book. I found it very interesting because there was so much about Coco Chanel that I didn't know. This book will stay in my collection for a long time.