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Mademoiselle Chanel

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

What better candidate can you find than a former fashion executive and a well renowned historical fiction author to write a novel covering the whole life of Coco Chanel? If several movies have been dedicated to her and a few novels focusing on some period or other of her life, I believe Mademoiselle Chanel is the first historical novel to consider her extensively from her humble beginnings to her years after WWII. The result is a masterpiece by C. W. Gortner.

Book bloggers often comment on the choice of author or narrator to present a male or female main protagonist. If I gave you to read Mademoiselle Chanel with no indication of author, I doubt you would suspect a minute a male author is actually behind this first person narrative of Gabrielle Chanel. He masterfully manages so well to embody her in each line, whether dealing with her stellar career or her turbulent and painful emotional life.

My hands reflect who I am. I see in them the struggle that has always existed between the humble girl I once was and the legend I deliberately created to hide my heart.
p.2

Presenting her life from her own perspective was also a genius idea, especially appropriate to deal with her shady years during the German occupation –if her American and British customers forgave her, the French were never again as much in love with her as before.

I also enjoyed how the author insisted on some elements in her younger years to put light on further developments in her life: for example her years as a kid in the convent with the nuns at Aubazine, and her friendship with Churchill (who called her Mademoiselle Chanel) so precious in the after War!

It was really fascinating to see how she rose to stardom, thanks to her tenacity, hard work, and basic skills at sowing as a kid, skills recognized and encouraged by nuns. And how she led her professional life in the midst of numerous heartbreaks.

As a French woman, I knew of course of Coco and her innovations in the world of fashion. Put in context, her story and evolution of her work was so interesting, even though I’m not one to follow fashion. So many times when I read the book I felt she was at the right time at the right place, and using the circumstances to make the most of it, for instance adapting convenient and comfortable clothes for women tending to the wounded during and after WWI.

You have learned to rise with the wind, rather than fight it.
Churchill to Coco, p.238

I rarely made a mistake. When I did, no one was harder on me than myself, my compulsion for perfection keeping me at my task until I succeeded.
p.25

The book also made me aware that she not only contributed a lot to clothes, hats, perfumes, jewelry, and other accessories, but she was really also the first to really launch the trend of tanned skins seen as beautiful. I did not know she had so many employees.

The novel offers also an amazing background on the rich world of artists in Paris on the first half of the 20th century, in a country also challenged by two world wars.

I have to confess this is the first book I read by C.W. Gortner, but it will definitely not be the last!

VERDICT: Daring the almost impossible, C.W. Gortner masterfully evokes Coco Chanel’s life in her own voice. A stunning presentation of an exceptional woman that will leave you dazzled, whether you are interested in the world of fashion or not.