Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

Description

A STUNNING BIOGRAPHY OF COCO CHANEL - THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF FASHION - EXAMINING HER INFLUENCE ON THE CULTURAL TRENDS OF HER TIME. Little black dresses. Faux pearls. Jersey knits. Skirt suits. Trousers. For over a century and counting, we all continue to see some version of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in nearly every woman we pass on the street. But few among us realise that Chanel's role in the events of the twentieth century was as pervasive as her influence on fashion, or how deeply she absorbed and then brilliantly reimagined the historical currents around her. Here, with unprecedented detail and scope - and through fascinating, thoroughly researched portraits of Chanel's lovers and friends - Rhonda Garelick shows us the Chanel who conquered the world ...a woman who thirsted to create others in her image, who creatively borrowed from her famous (and infamous) intimates, who understood the idea of branding and image well ahead of her time, who created, as Garelick puts it: "wearable personality." This is Chanel at the nexus of history: a woman of daring, passion, and legendary vision, in a wonderful biography that gives her her long-awaited due.

Rhonda Garelick writes on fashion, performance, art, and cultural politics. Her books include: Rising Star; Electric Salome: Loie Fuller's Performance of Modernism; and, as co-editor, Fabulous Harlequin: ORLAN and the Patchwork Self. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, New York Newsday and Sydney Morning Herald, as well as in numerous journals and museum catalogs in the US and Europe. She is a Guggenheim fellow and has received awards from the Getty Research Institute, the Dedalus Foundation, the American Association of University Women, the Whiting Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Garelick received her B.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and French from Yale University.