Published by skirt! on 01 Sep 2009
Goodreads | Amazon
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.
I was hoping that this book would be memoir-like and show some insight to Chanel's perspective on life/work/fashion, but this book is more about the legend of Chanel (rather than about who Chanel was as a real person), lauding her accomplishments much like a fan would. I suppose it must be difficult to write a memoir on Chanel, as I learned from Karbo's account that Chanel was "Mademoiselle Misinformation"; she regularly fibbed about her background when asked, and she even hired many people to write her memoir, gave every writer different accounts, and fired every one.
The book was broken into thematic chapters rather than organised chronologically, which was a bit confusing, and I wasn't interested in the parts when Karbo inserted herself into the narrative. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to read, but it'd be a nice book to use as decor and flip through occasionally.
