Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons From The World's Most Elegant Woman

by Karen Karbo

Hardcover, 2009

Status

Available

Publication

skirt! (2009), Edition: First, 225 pages

Description

Delving into the long, extraordinary life of renowned French fashion designer Coco Chanel, Karen Karbo has written a new kind of book, exploring Chanel's philosophy on a range of universal themes--from style to passion, from money and success to femininity and living life on your own terms.

Rating

(30 ratings; 3.5)

User reviews

LibraryThing member harrietbrown
Things I Learned: Coco Chanel came up with my favorite quote about style: "Elegance is refusal." I always thought it was Diana Vreeland, but no, Coca said it first.

Coco Chanel was a woman ahead of her time, but she was able to pay the game by her own rules, and by bending the rules of the old
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game.

She was in many ways a brilliant visionary as a designer, but she was also able to look around her and make something new from what was available ... and charge a fortune for it. She was privileged to be in Paris society at a time of artistic and cultural revolution. She knew Stravinsky, Diaghalev, Cocteau and Pierre Reverdy, and a great many other social and cultural bright lights. Her influence on fashion is still felt today: I was perusing Bill Cunningham's style articles on NY Times last night and there were women in their Chanel jackets and skirts, now courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld.

Karbo paints a picture of a fashion icon who was indomitable, took crap from no one and lived Wallis Simpson's dictum: "Never complain, never explain." She wasn't an easy person to love, but she got the job done. She built a fashion empire that lasts.
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LibraryThing member mawls
Ok, so I couldn't even read this one. I read a few pages and was bored. Usually I give a book a chance, but the writing steered me away from wanting to read more.
LibraryThing member cygnet81
So much fun to read!

Language

Original language

English

Physical description

225 p.; 6 inches

ISBN

1599215233 / 9781599215235
Page: 0.2388 seconds