Signed copy of The Real Coco Chanel by Rose Sgueglia (#38)

Coco Chanel lived her own life as a romantic heroine. Fuelled by 19th-century literature, she built a life that was half myth and half factual.

She was the fashion designer everyone admired. The businesswoman whose fortune was impossible to track. She was also a performer, lover of many high profile intellectuals and, as believed by many, a spy. Her life was, extraordinarily, affected by history (the right wing movement and World War II), symbolism and literature.

This biography explores her life from her troubled and poor past to the opening of her first hat shop, passions and secrets; the biography also draws parallelisms between myths and facts and how, and if ever, they match at all. The biography also features chapters on the Chanel Maison and the creation of her iconic trademark as well as her ‘little black dress’ and ‘Chanel No 5’. Finally, the biography ends with a reflection on how the myth of Coco Chanel is represented today in pop culture.