Justine Picardie's Biography of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life

Philip Gray: Chanel was an incredible lady and a force of nature throughout her life. Her life was the story of someone who knew what she wanted and changed the nature of what it was to be a woman.
Imagine walking through the corridors of 31 Rue Cabon and meeting this iconic figure who made her mark in the 🌎

United Kingdom on Nov 04, 2023

Bill Z: The book is in great shape can’t wait to read it!

United States on Oct 05, 2023

HansWahnsinn: Das Papier ist gut und das Buch sieht elegant und erstklassig aus. Das ist nicht nur geeignet für ein Geschenk, als auch gut für selbst zu lesen.

Germany on Oct 28, 2020

Photobook_4ever: This is one of the latest biographies of Coco Chanel. The author is well informed and passionate about the famous designer. One of the best things for me about this book is the pictures and the illustrations, some of them by the hand of Karl Lagerfeld himself.

France on May 20, 2019

Polinski: This is a great book on Chanel's biography. Written in a chronological order, with lots of interesting facts, anecdotes, and pictures throughout her life. What a fairytale story where the Princess recues herself from a life of poverty and anonymity!

Canada on Apr 27, 2017

camille bird: A very interesting insight of her life. Enjoyable read.

Australia on Jul 30, 2016

Izzy: I've often seen Chanel jackets on other women and perhaps owned a few "knock offs" myself. And I suppose I never really realized who the woman behind the clothing designs actually was or what her life was like. So, to me, this book was a revelation. Her life was a very interesting one spanning many years and throughout all of them she was working constantly. She learned her "craft" (sewing") in a convent where she and her sister were sent after their mother had died and her father had abandoned the family. She endeared herself to wealthy young men who funded her initial creations. She was responsible for a revolution in women's styles which changed the way women dressed in a significant way. She knew many interesting people, mainly men, but never married.
A very entertaining book.

United States on Oct 10, 2014

Igor Biryukov: In this elegant book Justine Picardie writes about the life and character of Coco Chanel. Chanel liberated women from the constrains of the corset and introduced more practical women's clothing (boyish sportswear, suits, and unisex pants) in the early twentieth century. However, it was the Little Black Dress that was her most groundbreaking fashion statement when it first made an appearance in 1926.

As a Russian, I was surprised by the amount of Russians in Chanel's life, including the nephew of the last Tsar, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov. They were lovers for several years. It was the Grand Duke who introduced her to the former perfumer to the Tsars and former Russian subject called Ernest Beaux (a truly remarkable German-French-Russian character) who fled from Russia to France after the Revolution. He created the famous scent of Chanel #5 in 1921. I learned that there are some speculations that Chanel was a German spy or perhaps a double agent during WWII working for the British. She knew Winston Churchill personally and was a lover of the Duke of Westminster.

Chanel was a driven woman, who at first used fashion to make her way onto the Parisian high...

United States on Jan 01, 2014

Christophe Caballero: I have not read the book yet though was very excited to as there were so many wonderful photographs and illustrations. However, now I'm not so sure as before even starting I glanced at a photograph on the bottom left of page 138 stating the woman kneeling is Grand Duchess marie. Already, this seemed possibly false but when it mentioned the woman she was kneeling to was the Dowager Empress Marie I knew there had been a mistake. This large woman looks nothing the petite Empress Marie (born Dagmar of Denmark and sister to Queen Alexandra of England). I believe this is a photograph of of one of the celebrated teachers of etiquette to young ladies being presented at court. Hopefully this is the only photographic caption error in the book.

United States on Sep 15, 2011

Rob Hardy: Coco Chanel concentrated on simplicity and practicality in the clothes she fashioned. She fashioned her own life, however, to be complicated, and she further complicated things by changing her stories (or perhaps her memories) of her past. Fashion columnist and novelist Justine Picardie has attempted to sort out Chanel's life in a satisfying biography, _Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life_ (It Books). Chanel displayed an unusual resilience, overcoming poverty and lack of parental guidance to revolutionize women's fashions, and perfume, and then retiring and starting up again as successfully as before. Picardie says that "... so much of Chanel remains enigmatic - the more you run after her, the more elusive her ghost becomes," and it is easy to see that with Chanel busy making her mark in fashion and making herself into a legend, keeping track of what's real and what's not is often impossible. Nonetheless, even if there are gaps we cannot completely close, Picardie's portrait with all of Chanel's contradictions nicely brings to life this unique artist, bon vivant, and brilliant businesswoman.

Chanel was born in 1883, though of course she did not give this date in her own...

United States on Nov 21, 2010