Chanel and Her World
If style never goes out of fashion, then a biography of Coco Chanel shouldn't either. First published 25 years ago and out of print for the last decade, Charles-Roux's book was originally all black and white, but large color photos and illustrations have been added for this reissue, and the layout has been redesigned as well. (The text remains the same.) As a former editor-in-chief of French Vogue for 12 years and a longtime friend of Chanel, Charles-Roux collected a lot of photos of the fashion icon and of those allowed into her inner circle. She shares many of them in this massive biography, which follows Chanel's journey from her birth on August 20, 1883, to her days as a shop girl in Moulins to her triumph in, and transformation of, the fashion world. The book also provides insight into how Chanel's style developed and how its evolution was related to her defiance of the social conventions of her time; Coco was a great friend of the Cubists and she shared many of their avante-garde tastes. Charles-Roux's analysis may occasionally have more style than substance, but this balance would hardly have bothered Chanel, for whom style was always everything. And with a Chanel exhibition coming up at the Metropolitan Museum in May, 2005, it seems unlikely that this book will every be out of print for so long again.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.