Coco Chanel: Pearls, Perfume, and the Little Black Dress by Susan Goldman Rubin (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Coco Chanel: Pearls, Perfume, and the Little Black Dress by Susan Goldman Rubin
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4197-2544-9 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-68335-291-4 $15.54
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-9
Plenty of celebrities boast of their log cabin roots and rags-to-riches rise, but iconic designer Coco Chanel (name recorded at birth as Gabrielle Chasnel) dissembled about her illegitimate birth, absent parents, and orphanage upbringing at every turn, creating a personal backstory that is a challenge for biographers to verify and a gossipy delight for readers to peruse. Rubin offers an honest account of Chanel’s success as a profoundly influential couturier, highlighting her innovations—from use of humble fabrics and spurning of restrictive undergarments, to the chemical alchemy of her nonfloral perfume and the rattling layers of costume jewelry—while addressing the more abrasive and problematic aspects of her personal and professional relationships. Rubin doesn’t pull her punches in discussing Chanel’s flights of autobiographical fancy (well, lies) and overt anti-Semitism (although she considers charges of Nazi collaboration unproved), but she oddly euphemizes the designer’s many A-lister sexual liaisons as dates, boyfriends, and visits to country estates. Photo illustrations not only depict Chanel throughout her lifetime but also allow viewers to contrast the fussiness of contemporary fashion she eschewed with her sleek, freeing creations. Readers who enjoyed Rubin’s Hot Pink: The Life and Fashions of Elsa Schiaparelli (BCCB 10/15) will be particularly charmed by the inevitable runway smackdown, and enterprising YA librarians may want to program around Team Coco and Team Schiap design competition. Source notes, index, bibliography, and a list of museums with Chanel collections are appended. [End Page 307]
