NATIONAL BESTSELLERCertain lives are at once so exceptional; and yet so in step with their historical moments; that they illuminate cultural forces far beyond the scope of a single person. Such is the case with Coco Chanel; whose life offers one of the most fascinating tales of the twentieth centurymdash;throwing into dramatic relief an era of war; fashion; ardent nationalism; and earth-shaking changemdash;here brilliantly treated; for the first time; with wide-ranging and incisive historical scrutiny. Coco Chanel transformed forever the way women dressed. Her influence remains so pervasive that to this day we can see her afterimage a dozen times while just walking down a single street: in all the little black dresses; flat shoes; costume jewelry; cardigan sweaters; and tortoiseshell eyeglasses on women of every age and background. A bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume is sold every three seconds. Arguably; no other individual has had a deeper impact on the visual aesthetic of the world. But how did a poor orphan become a global icon of both luxury and everyday style? How did she develop such vast; undying influence? And what does our ongoing love of all things Chanel tell us about ourselves? These are the mysteries that Rhonda K. Garelick unravels in Mademoiselle. Raised in rural poverty and orphaned early; the young Chanel supported herself as best she could. Then; as an uneducated nineteen-year-old cafeacute; singer; she attracted the attention of a wealthy and powerful admirer and parlayed his support into her own hat design business. For the rest of Chanelrsquo;s life; the professional; personal; and political were interwoven; her lovers included diplomat Boy Capel; composer Igor Stravinsky; Romanov heir Grand Duke Dmitri; Hugh Grosvenor; the Duke of Westminster; poet Pierre Reverdy; a Nazi officer; and several women as well. For all that; she was profoundly alone; her romantic life relentlessly plagued by abandonment and tragedy. Chanelrsquo;s ambitions and accomplishments were unparalleled. Her hat shop evolved into a clothing empire. She became a noted theatrical and film costume designer; collaborating with the likes of Pablo Picasso; Jean Cocteau; and Luchino Visconti. The genius of Coco Chanel; Garelick shows; lay in the way she absorbed the zeitgeist; reflecting it back to the world in her designs and in what Garelick calls ldquo;wearable personalityrdquo;mdash;the irresistible and contagious style infused with both world history and Chanelrsquo;s nearly unbelievable life saga. By age forty; Chanel had become a multimillionaire and a household name; and her Chanel Corporation is still the highest-earning privately owned luxury goods manufacturer in the world. In Mademoiselle; Garelick delivers the most probing; well-researched; and insightful biography to date on this seemingly familiar but endlessly surprising figuremdash;a work that is truly both a heady intellectual study and a literary page-turner.Praise for Mademoiselle ldquo;A detailed; wry and nuanced portrait of a complicated woman that leaves the reader in a state of utterly satisfying confusionmdash;blissfully mesmerized and confounded by the reality of the human spirit.rdquo;mdash;The Washington Post ldquo;Writing an exhaustive biography of Chanel is a challenge comparable to racing a four-horse chariot. . . . This makes the assured confidence with which Garelick tells her story all the more remarkable.rdquo;mdash;The New York Review of Booksldquo;Broadly focused and beautifully written.rdquo;mdash;The Wall Street JournalFrom the Hardcover edition.
#2549851 in eBooks 2015-06-10 2015-06-10File Name: B00JLS18YE
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Nice story.By DavidOk story. More a dissertation on Petersburgs early history. Could use some maps to locate streets mentioned in the text. Unless you are familiar with the layout of Petersburg street the details of how and where the fire spread to means little or nothing.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A Pre-Reading ReviewBy R. FrancoisOK I havent read this yet but I have just ordered 5 copies! I am from Petersburg VA; a very important but well ignored city in our nations history.Much of Turn and other historical series on TV have been filmed in my hometown; so I am very interested in this newest book as well as the film Eastman is making of this period.My friends are posting this on FB and there will be sales. This is a period in our colonial history that is skimmed over in general education in our VA history classes where most emphasis is put on the Revolutionary war and later the signing of the Constitution; then on to the Civil War. We in our town do not know much about this and in the historical write up in wikipedia; only one sentence is devoted to it; stating that there was a fire in 1815. So we locals are very interested in reading about this.I gave it 4 stars in advance because Eastman chose to make this bit of our history known. Ill get back to another review once Ive read it. Its quite a short book; only 112 pages; so shouldnt take long to read. We are always interested in knowing more about events that occurred in our city.Back to you later.
