Research Catalog
Chanel : her style and her life / Janet Wallach.
- Title
- Chanel : her style and her life / Janet Wallach.
- Author
- Wallach, Janet, 1942-
- Publication
- New York : N. Talese, 1998.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Not available - Please for assistance. | Text | Request in advance | TT507 .W2158 1998 | Off-site |
Details
- Additional Authors
- Updike, John
- Description
- 180 p. : ill.; 26 cm.
- Summary
- "When she realized that the great love of her life, shipping and coal magnate Arthur "Boy" Capel, wouldn't marry a courtesan, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel settled for his backing in business and opened her first high-fashion shop. According to Wallach's pictorial biography, such pragmatism characterized Chanel throughout her life, as each of her many famous lovers?Igor Stravinsky, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich and the Duke of Westminster among them?helped her with money, influence or, at the very least, access to a smashing personal wardrobe. Profuse, if sometimes redundant, illustrations chronicle the canny Frenchwoman's progress from fashion iconoclast to couture icon. Wallach earnestly details the designer's innovations: Chanel popularized the jersey and cardigan and pants for women; legitimized costume jewelry; invented the "little black dress"; developed the ubiquitous, eponymous suit, as well as her trademark fragrance, Chanel No. 5. But as biography, the book offers little more than a list of Chanel's accomplishments and acquaintances. Wallach's (Desert Queen) text is variously silly, sentimental and strangely unidiomatic ("her modest means could never match their well-heeled bank accounts"). Some of the more intriguing details, involving the designer's failure in Hollywood and her romantic and financial connections with the Nazis, suggest a complex, calculating, passionate woman. But the book's most telling moments ultimately don't tell enough about the woman who more or less invented the modern fashion industry. 150 photos and illustrations."--Review From Publishers Weekly, Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Galley proofs.
- History
- Association copies (Provenance)
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-174) and index.
- Processing Action (note)
- committed to retain
- ISBN
- 0385488726
- LCCN
- ^^^98022665^
- OCLC
- 38959859
- SCSB-10815133
- Owning Institutions
- Harvard Library