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Chanel's Riviera: Glamour, Decadence, and Survival in Peace and War, 1930-1944
In this captivating narrative, Chanel’s Riviera explores the fascinating world of the Cote d’Azur during a period that saw the deepest extremes of luxury and terror in the twentieth century.
The Cote d’Azur in 1938 was a world of wealth, luxury, and extravagance, inhabited by a sparkling cast of characters including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Joseph P. Kennedy, Gloria Swanson, Colette, the Mitfords, Picasso, Cecil Beaton, and Somerset Maugham. The elite flocked to the Riviera each year to swim, gamble, and escape from the turbulence plaguing the rest of Europe. At the glittering center of it all was Coco Chanel, whose very presence at her magnificently appointed villa, La Pausa, made it the ultimate place to be. Born an orphan, her beauty and formidable intelligence allured many men, but it was her incredible talent, relentless work ethic, and exquisite taste that made her an icon.
But this wildly seductive world was poised on the edge of destruction. In a matter of months, the Nazis swooped down and the glamour of the pre-war parties and casinos gave way to the horrors of evacuation and the displacement of thousands of families during World War II. From the bitter struggle to survive emerged powerful stories of tragedy, sacrifice, and heroism.
Enriched by original research and de Courcy’s signature skill, Chanel’s Riviera brings the experiences of both rich and poor, protected and persecuted, to vivid life.
The Cote d’Azur in 1938 was a world of wealth, luxury, and extravagance, inhabited by a sparkling cast of characters including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Joseph P. Kennedy, Gloria Swanson, Colette, the Mitfords, Picasso, Cecil Beaton, and Somerset Maugham. The elite flocked to the Riviera each year to swim, gamble, and escape from the turbulence plaguing the rest of Europe. At the glittering center of it all was Coco Chanel, whose very presence at her magnificently appointed villa, La Pausa, made it the ultimate place to be. Born an orphan, her beauty and formidable intelligence allured many men, but it was her incredible talent, relentless work ethic, and exquisite taste that made her an icon.
But this wildly seductive world was poised on the edge of destruction. In a matter of months, the Nazis swooped down and the glamour of the pre-war parties and casinos gave way to the horrors of evacuation and the displacement of thousands of families during World War II. From the bitter struggle to survive emerged powerful stories of tragedy, sacrifice, and heroism.
Enriched by original research and de Courcy’s signature skill, Chanel’s Riviera brings the experiences of both rich and poor, protected and persecuted, to vivid life.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published June 13, 2019
519 people are currently reading
4080 people want to read
About the author
Anne de Courcy
24 books209 followersBorn in 1927, Anne de Courcy is a well-known writer, journalist and book reviewer. In the 1970s she was Woman’s Editor on the London Evening News until its demise in 1980, when she joined the Evening Standard as a columnist and feature-writer. In 1982 she joined the Daily Mail as a feature writer, with a special interest in historical subjects, leaving in 2003 to concentrate on books, on which she has talked widely both here and in the United States.
A critically-acclaimed and best-selling author, she believes that as well as telling the story of its subject’s life, a biography should depict the social history of the period, since so much of action and behaviour is governed not simply by obvious financial, social and physical conditions but also by underlying, often unspoken, contemporary attitudes, assumptions, standards and moral codes.
Anne is on the committee of the Biographers’ Club; and a past judge of their annual Prize. Her recent biographies, all of which have been serialised, include THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY and DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON; THE BIOGRAPHY, written with the agreement and co-operation of the Earl of Snowdon. Based on Anne’s book, a Channel 4 documentary “Snowdon and Margaret: Inside a Royal Marriage”, was broadcast.
Anne was a judge for the recent Biography section of the Costa Award in 2013, and is also one of the judges on the final selection panel judging the best of all the genres.
A critically-acclaimed and best-selling author, she believes that as well as telling the story of its subject’s life, a biography should depict the social history of the period, since so much of action and behaviour is governed not simply by obvious financial, social and physical conditions but also by underlying, often unspoken, contemporary attitudes, assumptions, standards and moral codes.
Anne is on the committee of the Biographers’ Club; and a past judge of their annual Prize. Her recent biographies, all of which have been serialised, include THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY and DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON; THE BIOGRAPHY, written with the agreement and co-operation of the Earl of Snowdon. Based on Anne’s book, a Channel 4 documentary “Snowdon and Margaret: Inside a Royal Marriage”, was broadcast.
Anne was a judge for the recent Biography section of the Costa Award in 2013, and is also one of the judges on the final selection panel judging the best of all the genres.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 210 reviews
February 23, 2020
3.5 stars!
In a nutshell, half of this book is about Coco Chanel’s glitzy, glamorous Riviera at a time when the Kennedys, Picasso, the Duke and Duchess Windsor, and many others were visiting and rubbing elbows with her. Chanel was a beauty and drop dead intelligent, which inspired awe in those who interacted with her. That said, the book shows other, darker sides to Chanel. These other sides were pertinent to what was happening all around her.
Meanwhile, the other half is about the Nazis who were about to destroy much more than this glamorous world. The Riviera was filled with refugees and those displaced from the war and seeking safety and asylum.
Overall, this is a well-written book, and I soaked up all the facts about this region and these starkly contrasting times in history.
I received a gifted copy from the publisher. Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
In a nutshell, half of this book is about Coco Chanel’s glitzy, glamorous Riviera at a time when the Kennedys, Picasso, the Duke and Duchess Windsor, and many others were visiting and rubbing elbows with her. Chanel was a beauty and drop dead intelligent, which inspired awe in those who interacted with her. That said, the book shows other, darker sides to Chanel. These other sides were pertinent to what was happening all around her.
Meanwhile, the other half is about the Nazis who were about to destroy much more than this glamorous world. The Riviera was filled with refugees and those displaced from the war and seeking safety and asylum.
Overall, this is a well-written book, and I soaked up all the facts about this region and these starkly contrasting times in history.
I received a gifted copy from the publisher. Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
October 18, 2020
I found this disjointed and misleadingly titled: Chanel isn't the focus and neither is the Riviera as much of the second half is taken up with Paris during the Occupation. So much of the information is well known and widely available elsewhere, and the whole thing feels stitched together of off-cuts resulting in repetitions of phrasing and matter. Chanel's difficult childhood, for example, makes an appearance towards the end rather than at the beginning, and there's a superficiality about the whole book. Lists of names are dropped repeatedly (Hemingway, Picasso, the Fitzgeralds, Diaghilev, Nabokov, Thomas Mann, Duff Cooper) with no further mentions of these people, there's a summary of the Edward and Wallis Simpson drama long after they've already been introduced as a married couple, and there are some awkward instances of fat-shaming that give this an old-fashioned feel.
I'd say this is a good primer if you know pretty much nothing about the 1930s-40s in France, though it still requires a firm edit to smooth out the timeline and get rid of the repetition.
A better book about the Riviera during the first part of the twentieth century is The Riviera Set; and on the Occupation, particularly from a female perspective, Les Parisiennes.
Verdict: Disappointing, and I only skim-read to the end.
I'd say this is a good primer if you know pretty much nothing about the 1930s-40s in France, though it still requires a firm edit to smooth out the timeline and get rid of the repetition.
A better book about the Riviera during the first part of the twentieth century is The Riviera Set; and on the Occupation, particularly from a female perspective, Les Parisiennes.
Verdict: Disappointing, and I only skim-read to the end.
January 22, 2020
3.5 stars
The author is pretty upfront with how this book isn't intended to be some definitive biography of Coco Chanel. There are other books out there that cover her entire life whereas this book has some details about how she got her start in the fashion and perfume industries but it primarily focuses on what was going on in her life the decade leading up to World War 2 as well as the war itself. This book also provides a look at France and in particular the French Riviera during that time period as well.
While the book is filled with many interesting facts, there are so many people covered in the book to the point in which it was difficult keeping track of everyone. (It was especially challenging to remember who was sleeping with who. My gosh, did anyone back then not carry on an affair?) Sure, there were some well known names like Churchill or writer Aldous Huxley getting mentions but there were also plenty of people I had never heard of before and it's unfortunate the writing style with bouncing back and forth made it challenging to keep up.
Even though I got frustrated at times while reading I am glad I got to learn a little more about some of the things that were going on in France during this time period. I do wish this had been more of a smoother read but at least the info was interesting.
I won a free advance copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway but was not obligated to post a review. All views expressed are my honest opinion.
The author is pretty upfront with how this book isn't intended to be some definitive biography of Coco Chanel. There are other books out there that cover her entire life whereas this book has some details about how she got her start in the fashion and perfume industries but it primarily focuses on what was going on in her life the decade leading up to World War 2 as well as the war itself. This book also provides a look at France and in particular the French Riviera during that time period as well.
While the book is filled with many interesting facts, there are so many people covered in the book to the point in which it was difficult keeping track of everyone. (It was especially challenging to remember who was sleeping with who. My gosh, did anyone back then not carry on an affair?) Sure, there were some well known names like Churchill or writer Aldous Huxley getting mentions but there were also plenty of people I had never heard of before and it's unfortunate the writing style with bouncing back and forth made it challenging to keep up.
Even though I got frustrated at times while reading I am glad I got to learn a little more about some of the things that were going on in France during this time period. I do wish this had been more of a smoother read but at least the info was interesting.
I won a free advance copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway but was not obligated to post a review. All views expressed are my honest opinion.
October 8, 2020
I have always enjoyed Anne de Courcy’s books, although this was something of a mixed read. In essence, it is a book of two halves. It begins with the decadence and extravagance of life on the Riviera, but, once war looms, there is a far more disturbing account of fascism, anti-Semitism, collaboration and shortages.
Although the book is clear that this is not a life of Chanel, she is a central figure. The beginning sets the scene well, with the Duke of Windsor coming to visit W. Somerset Maugham, and dropping the words, ‘Her,’ ‘Royal,’ ‘Highness,’ like bricks into the conversation… Although the main talking point at that time was Mrs Simpson, and how to address her, there was many others keen to visit this world of luxury and relaxation. From Churchill to Mosley, Aldous Huxley, Cyril Connolly, Wodehouse, Beaverbrook and Edith Wharton, the rich and famous flocked to the sea. However, among the love affairs and sea bathing, there are also drugs, debts and despair.
Certainly, the approaching war cast a dark shadow, despite the initial attempt of many there to ignore the facts that war was coming. As the threat of war increased, many British subjects attempted to leave France, although the Duke of Windsor was hard to convince, until he was almost bundled out of the country, and out of harms way (whether his, or ours, is hard to discern).
Of course, Coco Chanel’s war years, and of her collaboration with the German occupation, are well known. Bizarrely, she attempted to organise peace talks between Churchill and German High Command, but there is more about others caught up in the war; including those in Paris. Among the collaborators, of course, there is also resistance, bravery and kindness. Overall, this is an interesting, if slightly uneven, read, which does not quite know which part of the time it most wishes to address.
Although the book is clear that this is not a life of Chanel, she is a central figure. The beginning sets the scene well, with the Duke of Windsor coming to visit W. Somerset Maugham, and dropping the words, ‘Her,’ ‘Royal,’ ‘Highness,’ like bricks into the conversation… Although the main talking point at that time was Mrs Simpson, and how to address her, there was many others keen to visit this world of luxury and relaxation. From Churchill to Mosley, Aldous Huxley, Cyril Connolly, Wodehouse, Beaverbrook and Edith Wharton, the rich and famous flocked to the sea. However, among the love affairs and sea bathing, there are also drugs, debts and despair.
Certainly, the approaching war cast a dark shadow, despite the initial attempt of many there to ignore the facts that war was coming. As the threat of war increased, many British subjects attempted to leave France, although the Duke of Windsor was hard to convince, until he was almost bundled out of the country, and out of harms way (whether his, or ours, is hard to discern).
Of course, Coco Chanel’s war years, and of her collaboration with the German occupation, are well known. Bizarrely, she attempted to organise peace talks between Churchill and German High Command, but there is more about others caught up in the war; including those in Paris. Among the collaborators, of course, there is also resistance, bravery and kindness. Overall, this is an interesting, if slightly uneven, read, which does not quite know which part of the time it most wishes to address.
December 17, 2019
I’ve always wanted to know more about Coco Chanel the fashion and perfume maven, and this was a good overall look at her life, at least during an important part of it that tells of her and how she did business and lived her life. I enjoyed learning about the various artists and writers that she was friends with and socialized with. It shows the extreme opulence of the party lifestyle along the Riviera of the rich and famous against the backdrop of the rumblings of Germany and Hitler arming up for WWII.
Coco built her main home on the Riviera, La Pausa, and spent most of her summer there with her latest lover. She didn’t care to be tied down or controlled by a husband. It’s also filled with information on lots of other public people like the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, Winston Churchill, Salvador Dali, and many others of the time. I found it fairly enjoyable. Advance electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, author Anne de Courcy, and the publisher.
First published on my WordPress blog as seen here: https://wordpress.com/post/bookblog20...
Coco built her main home on the Riviera, La Pausa, and spent most of her summer there with her latest lover. She didn’t care to be tied down or controlled by a husband. It’s also filled with information on lots of other public people like the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, Winston Churchill, Salvador Dali, and many others of the time. I found it fairly enjoyable. Advance electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, author Anne de Courcy, and the publisher.
First published on my WordPress blog as seen here: https://wordpress.com/post/bookblog20...
August 13, 2019
I received this as a goodreads giveaway. The book looks at the Riviera prior to WWII and throughout the course of the war. As evidence by the title, the work focuses on Coco Chanel and uses her experiences and life to analyze the Riveria. The book is half on Chanel and half on the Riviera during World War II.
While the focus on Chanel had merit, the author did spend an good deal of the early part of the book discussing Chanel's rise and the societal happenings in the Riviera. The book is best when discussing the impact of WWII on the Riviera and France as a whole. Among the most noteworthy topics are the cult of the Maginot Line and the behavior of occupying troops. Throughout the prewar chapters, the author mentions the belief of the French populace in the safety and impenetrability of the Maginot Line. The level of this belief led to a sense of utter despair after its circumnavigation. It appears the the fall of the line crushed the French fighting spirt.
Additionally, the behavior of occupying Italian troops is noteworth. Italian troops are cited as being very tolerant to all peoples in Riviera and actually refusing to allow the arrest or deportation of Jewish citizens in their area. Previously, I had not heard of this and it was interesting to see the differing attitude amongst the occupying powers.
Overall, this was an interesting book, but I would have preferred it to have left out the societal and fasion focus.
While the focus on Chanel had merit, the author did spend an good deal of the early part of the book discussing Chanel's rise and the societal happenings in the Riviera. The book is best when discussing the impact of WWII on the Riviera and France as a whole. Among the most noteworthy topics are the cult of the Maginot Line and the behavior of occupying troops. Throughout the prewar chapters, the author mentions the belief of the French populace in the safety and impenetrability of the Maginot Line. The level of this belief led to a sense of utter despair after its circumnavigation. It appears the the fall of the line crushed the French fighting spirt.
Additionally, the behavior of occupying Italian troops is noteworth. Italian troops are cited as being very tolerant to all peoples in Riviera and actually refusing to allow the arrest or deportation of Jewish citizens in their area. Previously, I had not heard of this and it was interesting to see the differing attitude amongst the occupying powers.
Overall, this was an interesting book, but I would have preferred it to have left out the societal and fasion focus.
February 11, 2020
There were some major problems with this book.
Repetitive language and badly organized
This book reads like a first draft. First, some smaller things. The author has the same paragraph--with nearly the same wording--about Chanel's childhood twice to no good effect. She introduces Aldous Huxley several times, with almost the exact same wording. She skips around in the twenties and thirties for no real reason, succeeding in muddying the timeline and repeating biographical and historical details over and over again. The editors should have fixed those problems.
As for the structure overall, I believe the intention in the first third was to paint a picture of the decadence of the Riviera, which was studiously ignoring the affairs of the continent. The decadence, I got--though why we need to know every piece of furniture in every mansion is not clear. She many times says that world affairs "ripple" into the consciousness of the Riviera, but she never gives any hint as to what these Riviera inhabitants truly think about them. She implies that these people--Chanel, Huxley, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Proust, etc.--were simply too rich and frivolous to care much about the impending disaster. What a cliché. Really? The greatest artists and intellectuals of the time had no opinion at all about politics in the 1930s? If they were all in denial, then tell us why. Tell us how their denial mirrored the country's overall attitude to Germany--tell us why it was important.
She gives a great deal of attention to Vichy France's shameful part in the Holocaust. I wouldn't object to this, except that it was a major diversion from the Riviera and from Chanel. This book was totally unfocused, as a result. It should have been two books. One on the Riviera and its people, one on France and the Holocaust. The author makes very little effort to connect those very different topics. I don't think the pieces on the Holocaust were well-written either, but at least the importance of the material was clear.
Shallow
The author focuses to an absurd extent on the sex lives of the rich and famous. If she had, for example, given an analysis of the denial and class privilege these people were indulging in compared with the rest of Europe, which did not have the luxury of ignoring the impending war, it would have been one thing. If she had given some context of the Riviera, or explained how the end of World War I dovetailed into the lost generation and the Roaring Twenties, it could have been interesting. However, she doesn't give much more than a lot of namedropping attached to a lengthy catalogue of affairs and vices. I guess it was just really fun to peek behind the curtain of household names?
As a side note, the author cites a literary tour guide of the Riviera as one of her sources. It kind of seems like she took the tour guide and expanded it for the first third of the book.
The most irritating "storyline" was her inclusion of the the Duke of Windsor and his wife, Wallis Simpson. Their scandal seems to be included simply because it was scandalous, not because the author really had anything to say about it and how it fit into the picture of France in World War II. She gives them a lot of space in the first half of the book or so, then they simply disappear from the narrative entirely.
The author indulges in baseless speculation many times. The most irritating was her suggestion that Chanel tried to broker a peace between Churchill and Hitler out of boredom. Boredom! Further examples are her suggestions that Chanel probably took lovers in her fifties and beyond because she, as an "older" woman, was grateful to get any kind of action that she could. At one point, the author suggests Chanel had a younger man as her lover because she wanted to show off her "fine specimen." Again, what a cliché! How ridiculous. If you don't know why someone did something, why speculate? Just say that the records don't show it. If you do speculate, give some character analysis based on facts that actually are available.
The historical summaries she gives are nothing special. I've read many better ones; it's clear to me that she hasn't read much military history, which is too bad, given the importance she grants to the Maginot Line. She needed to read Max Hastings and Rick Atkinson. Her bibliography lists more books about Chanel than about World War II.
Repetitive language and badly organized
This book reads like a first draft. First, some smaller things. The author has the same paragraph--with nearly the same wording--about Chanel's childhood twice to no good effect. She introduces Aldous Huxley several times, with almost the exact same wording. She skips around in the twenties and thirties for no real reason, succeeding in muddying the timeline and repeating biographical and historical details over and over again. The editors should have fixed those problems.
As for the structure overall, I believe the intention in the first third was to paint a picture of the decadence of the Riviera, which was studiously ignoring the affairs of the continent. The decadence, I got--though why we need to know every piece of furniture in every mansion is not clear. She many times says that world affairs "ripple" into the consciousness of the Riviera, but she never gives any hint as to what these Riviera inhabitants truly think about them. She implies that these people--Chanel, Huxley, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Proust, etc.--were simply too rich and frivolous to care much about the impending disaster. What a cliché. Really? The greatest artists and intellectuals of the time had no opinion at all about politics in the 1930s? If they were all in denial, then tell us why. Tell us how their denial mirrored the country's overall attitude to Germany--tell us why it was important.
She gives a great deal of attention to Vichy France's shameful part in the Holocaust. I wouldn't object to this, except that it was a major diversion from the Riviera and from Chanel. This book was totally unfocused, as a result. It should have been two books. One on the Riviera and its people, one on France and the Holocaust. The author makes very little effort to connect those very different topics. I don't think the pieces on the Holocaust were well-written either, but at least the importance of the material was clear.
Shallow
The author focuses to an absurd extent on the sex lives of the rich and famous. If she had, for example, given an analysis of the denial and class privilege these people were indulging in compared with the rest of Europe, which did not have the luxury of ignoring the impending war, it would have been one thing. If she had given some context of the Riviera, or explained how the end of World War I dovetailed into the lost generation and the Roaring Twenties, it could have been interesting. However, she doesn't give much more than a lot of namedropping attached to a lengthy catalogue of affairs and vices. I guess it was just really fun to peek behind the curtain of household names?
As a side note, the author cites a literary tour guide of the Riviera as one of her sources. It kind of seems like she took the tour guide and expanded it for the first third of the book.
The most irritating "storyline" was her inclusion of the the Duke of Windsor and his wife, Wallis Simpson. Their scandal seems to be included simply because it was scandalous, not because the author really had anything to say about it and how it fit into the picture of France in World War II. She gives them a lot of space in the first half of the book or so, then they simply disappear from the narrative entirely.
The author indulges in baseless speculation many times. The most irritating was her suggestion that Chanel tried to broker a peace between Churchill and Hitler out of boredom. Boredom! Further examples are her suggestions that Chanel probably took lovers in her fifties and beyond because she, as an "older" woman, was grateful to get any kind of action that she could. At one point, the author suggests Chanel had a younger man as her lover because she wanted to show off her "fine specimen." Again, what a cliché! How ridiculous. If you don't know why someone did something, why speculate? Just say that the records don't show it. If you do speculate, give some character analysis based on facts that actually are available.
The historical summaries she gives are nothing special. I've read many better ones; it's clear to me that she hasn't read much military history, which is too bad, given the importance she grants to the Maginot Line. She needed to read Max Hastings and Rick Atkinson. Her bibliography lists more books about Chanel than about World War II.
November 11, 2019
When I heard Anne de Courcy talk about her book at Henley Literary Festival recently she described Chanel’s Riviera as a ‘biography of the Riviera’. I think that’s a fair description because readers expecting the majority of the book to be about Chanel may be disappointed. Yes, Chanel does feature a lot but in sections of the book she is either on the periphery or absent entirely. For example, she spent periods during the war in Paris rather than on the Riviera.
What the book does well is conjure up the glamour and hedonism of life on the Riviera for the rich and famous before the war. The author describes how it became a haven for writers and artists like Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, H G Wells and Jean Cocteau, as well as society figures such as Winston Churchill and, later, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
The mood changes suddenly following the outbreak of war. The book depicts the arrival of refugees from Northern Europe, including Jews fleeing persecution, and the food shortages that followed the fall of France in 1940 as supplies were diverted to Germany. Life for many living on the Cote d’Azur became really tough and the author uses material from diaries and contemporary sources to tell the harrowing stories of individuals.
Other than her reputation as a designer, I knew very little about Chanel’s life before reading this book. It was interesting to learn of her rise from humble beginnings to doyenne of the fashion world. However, I can’t say everything I learned made me warm to Chanel as a person. For instance, I was shocked to learn of her anti-Semitic views.
In the book the author addresses claims that Chanel collaborated with the Nazis. For example, she suggests Chanel’s taking of a senior German officer as a lover was principally aimed at trying to gain the release of her nephew who was being held as a prisoner of war by the Germans. However I found myself wondering if ‘the will to survive’ was sufficient justification for some of Chanel’s actions.
As the author recounts, partly what kept Chanel free from the retaliation meted out to others accused of collaboration was the reopening of her Paris store following its liberation in 1944 and the offer of a free bottle of her iconic perfume for every US soldier to take home to their wife or sweetheart. That and being able to produce papers demonstrating her friendship with Winston Churchill.
Chanel’s Riviera is clearly the product of extensive research. For me, the most interesting element of the book was seeing the impact of the Second World War on an area of France which had hitherto been the playground of the rich and famous. #NonficNov
What the book does well is conjure up the glamour and hedonism of life on the Riviera for the rich and famous before the war. The author describes how it became a haven for writers and artists like Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, H G Wells and Jean Cocteau, as well as society figures such as Winston Churchill and, later, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
The mood changes suddenly following the outbreak of war. The book depicts the arrival of refugees from Northern Europe, including Jews fleeing persecution, and the food shortages that followed the fall of France in 1940 as supplies were diverted to Germany. Life for many living on the Cote d’Azur became really tough and the author uses material from diaries and contemporary sources to tell the harrowing stories of individuals.
Other than her reputation as a designer, I knew very little about Chanel’s life before reading this book. It was interesting to learn of her rise from humble beginnings to doyenne of the fashion world. However, I can’t say everything I learned made me warm to Chanel as a person. For instance, I was shocked to learn of her anti-Semitic views.
In the book the author addresses claims that Chanel collaborated with the Nazis. For example, she suggests Chanel’s taking of a senior German officer as a lover was principally aimed at trying to gain the release of her nephew who was being held as a prisoner of war by the Germans. However I found myself wondering if ‘the will to survive’ was sufficient justification for some of Chanel’s actions.
As the author recounts, partly what kept Chanel free from the retaliation meted out to others accused of collaboration was the reopening of her Paris store following its liberation in 1944 and the offer of a free bottle of her iconic perfume for every US soldier to take home to their wife or sweetheart. That and being able to produce papers demonstrating her friendship with Winston Churchill.
Chanel’s Riviera is clearly the product of extensive research. For me, the most interesting element of the book was seeing the impact of the Second World War on an area of France which had hitherto been the playground of the rich and famous. #NonficNov
March 23, 2020
As others have said, this is not a book solely about Coco Chanel. The book title is Chanel’s RIVIERA. This is a book about life on the French Riviera pre WW II and after. The before war story is, as imagined, glamorous and chic. Chanel and her friends had never ending good times. Then, as quickly as this coronavirus has changed lives in the USA and world, WWII and its German occupation changed France in unspeakable ways. I have to tell you, I know a good bit about Britain, and life in the US, and Germany during the war, but not much about France. This a war story book. It is a sobering story about those very same people at the start of the book and at the end. It is a tragedy. I’m left with much to think about, imagine, and feel sorry about on so many levels. This makes it a good book. I am giving it 5 stars for that reason, but know this is not a fun and games, happy-go-lucky book.
September 16, 2023
Cartea in sine nu este axata doar pe viata marii creatoarei de moda, ci prezinta traiul pe Coasta de Azur in perioada celui de-Al Doilea Razboi Mondial, trecand in revista mai multe personalitati emblematice ale acelor vremuri.
January 23, 2020
Dear god. A serious bit of arse kissing went on here. I don't know how anyone could tell that Ms De Courcy had a serious thing for Channel as nothing in this book gives this away. Not. What makes the whole thing worse is that as the author is kissing Channel's butt, the designer herself is still coming across as an absolute bitch. Even Ms de Courcy's lovefest cannot save her. Dreadful piece of writing..
March 2, 2020
I'll admit I didn't really finish this book - I only made it about halfway through. I kept waiting for it get "good" and capture my interest, but that hadn't happened by page 138, so I gave up. For me, it was like reading Jesus's genealogy in Matthew - so and so went to such and such place with so and so - when you don't know the names or the places, it just like reading the phonebook with names and addresses :(
February 10, 2024
In the inexhaustible saga of high-end decadence among the Bright Young Things on the French Riviera before WWII, Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel's name features in heavy rotation. The now-legendary couturière owned an estate (La Pausa, if you must know) on the Côte d'Azur from 1929 to 1953, bouncing between it and Paris during these turbulent years. Being already rich and famous, she fit in quite nicely with all the other rich and/or famous people haunting the coast, though she actually did something to earn her money.
That's ostensibly what Chanel's Riviera is about.
This is the second nonfiction book I've read about this milieu. Rather than repeat the background for the action here, I'll shoot you over to my review of The Riviera Set, about which I was lukewarm, at best. (Go ahead; I'll wait.)
(Finished? Good.) A lot of the same people show up in this book, too, including Maxine Elliott, whose seaside villa wasn't far from La Pausa. A lot of the same bad behavior also features in this book. It's something of an exercise in deja vu, especially when read close together. Chanel's Riviera differs in a few ways; some good, some not so much.
Chanel was a "difficult" woman. Orphaned young and the survivor of a convent education (being surrounded by nuns in her formative years may explain her early fascination with black-and-white clothes), Chanel clawed her way up through the French fashion industry, reaching its pinnacle in the 1920s. She was driven, a workaholic, tyrannical with her workers, and mercurial. She could cut long-time friends dead with abuse, then turn around and shower money, cars, even homes on other friends or acquaintances. She never married or had children, but carried on a very active love life as a serial mistress to the rich/famous men who gravitated to her. And when Paris got to be too much, she'd ride the Train Bleu down to the Med and take up residence in La Pausa for "a restful pause" (thus the villa's name). All this is documented to one extent or another in Chanel's Riviera, especially her carousel of lovers.
When war came to Paris in 1940, Chanel shut down her fashion house -- throwing over 4000 mostly female employees out of work without a thought -- and idled in either the Ritz, where she kept an apartment, or at La Pausa. Her roundelay of British, French, and Russian lovers expanded to include Germans. A convinced antisemite, she meshed well with the collaborationist haute monde and suffered none of the privations visited on ordinary French people.
While Chanel partied, the Riviera suffered at the hands of Petain's Vichy regime, then the Italians, then the Nazis. Vichy Milice and the Nazi SS rounded up the French and non-French Jews who had fled to the Riviera, including a number of prestigious authors, playwrights, painters, sculptors, and other intelligentsia, many of whom perished in the holding camps in France or the death camps in central and eastern Europe. Food began to disappear under these succeeding rounds of despots until the residents of the Riviera found themselves on the brink of starvation by the time the Allies invaded in August 1944. This, too, is documented at length in this book, something The Riviera Set didn't manage. The story's timeline ends as the war does.
The author has made a career out of chronicling the prewar idle rich, so this is familiar territory for her. The prose is clear and generally well-formed, though you'll need a scorecard to keep track of the enormous cast of incidental players. An impressive list of primary and secondary sources in the back pages shows she was a busy bee while preparing to write this. Chanel's Riviera is more ambitious than The Riviera Set; it fills in holes the other book left gaping, and in Chanel it has a focus the other book lacked.
And yet, if we had half-stars, I'd give this 3.5 of the little beggars. Why the meh rating? Ultimately, its ambition undoes it. This book can't seem to decide whether it's a profile of Chanel in the 1920s and 1930s, a chronicle of the Riviera's golden era, or a story of France during the Occupation, so it tries to be all three with varying levels of success. Chanel's pre-1920s life, when presented at all, is disjointed and out of sequence. In the last third of the book, we spend nearly as much time in wartime Paris as we do on the Riviera. Like The Riviera Set, we never learn much about the common folk who made the Riviera work. That said, if I had to choose between these two books, I'd take Chanel's Riviera because it's less breathless and better rounded than The Riviera Set. I'd have to think about it, though.
Chanel's Riviera attempts to be a dual portrait of a small slice of Mediterranean France and one of the gilded inhabitants of that small, clubby enclave. It's not always successful, but it tries hard. Go into this with the proper expectations and you'll get an interesting tale of a place and time that's now as dead as Pompeii or Babylon...just don't expect it to be the last word in anything.
That's ostensibly what Chanel's Riviera is about.
This is the second nonfiction book I've read about this milieu. Rather than repeat the background for the action here, I'll shoot you over to my review of The Riviera Set, about which I was lukewarm, at best. (Go ahead; I'll wait.)
(Finished? Good.) A lot of the same people show up in this book, too, including Maxine Elliott, whose seaside villa wasn't far from La Pausa. A lot of the same bad behavior also features in this book. It's something of an exercise in deja vu, especially when read close together. Chanel's Riviera differs in a few ways; some good, some not so much.
Chanel was a "difficult" woman. Orphaned young and the survivor of a convent education (being surrounded by nuns in her formative years may explain her early fascination with black-and-white clothes), Chanel clawed her way up through the French fashion industry, reaching its pinnacle in the 1920s. She was driven, a workaholic, tyrannical with her workers, and mercurial. She could cut long-time friends dead with abuse, then turn around and shower money, cars, even homes on other friends or acquaintances. She never married or had children, but carried on a very active love life as a serial mistress to the rich/famous men who gravitated to her. And when Paris got to be too much, she'd ride the Train Bleu down to the Med and take up residence in La Pausa for "a restful pause" (thus the villa's name). All this is documented to one extent or another in Chanel's Riviera, especially her carousel of lovers.
When war came to Paris in 1940, Chanel shut down her fashion house -- throwing over 4000 mostly female employees out of work without a thought -- and idled in either the Ritz, where she kept an apartment, or at La Pausa. Her roundelay of British, French, and Russian lovers expanded to include Germans. A convinced antisemite, she meshed well with the collaborationist haute monde and suffered none of the privations visited on ordinary French people.
While Chanel partied, the Riviera suffered at the hands of Petain's Vichy regime, then the Italians, then the Nazis. Vichy Milice and the Nazi SS rounded up the French and non-French Jews who had fled to the Riviera, including a number of prestigious authors, playwrights, painters, sculptors, and other intelligentsia, many of whom perished in the holding camps in France or the death camps in central and eastern Europe. Food began to disappear under these succeeding rounds of despots until the residents of the Riviera found themselves on the brink of starvation by the time the Allies invaded in August 1944. This, too, is documented at length in this book, something The Riviera Set didn't manage. The story's timeline ends as the war does.
The author has made a career out of chronicling the prewar idle rich, so this is familiar territory for her. The prose is clear and generally well-formed, though you'll need a scorecard to keep track of the enormous cast of incidental players. An impressive list of primary and secondary sources in the back pages shows she was a busy bee while preparing to write this. Chanel's Riviera is more ambitious than The Riviera Set; it fills in holes the other book left gaping, and in Chanel it has a focus the other book lacked.
And yet, if we had half-stars, I'd give this 3.5 of the little beggars. Why the meh rating? Ultimately, its ambition undoes it. This book can't seem to decide whether it's a profile of Chanel in the 1920s and 1930s, a chronicle of the Riviera's golden era, or a story of France during the Occupation, so it tries to be all three with varying levels of success. Chanel's pre-1920s life, when presented at all, is disjointed and out of sequence. In the last third of the book, we spend nearly as much time in wartime Paris as we do on the Riviera. Like The Riviera Set, we never learn much about the common folk who made the Riviera work. That said, if I had to choose between these two books, I'd take Chanel's Riviera because it's less breathless and better rounded than The Riviera Set. I'd have to think about it, though.
Chanel's Riviera attempts to be a dual portrait of a small slice of Mediterranean France and one of the gilded inhabitants of that small, clubby enclave. It's not always successful, but it tries hard. Go into this with the proper expectations and you'll get an interesting tale of a place and time that's now as dead as Pompeii or Babylon...just don't expect it to be the last word in anything.
Read
November 29, 2021Fascinating and fun in equal measure.
September 9, 2019
Anne de Courcy’s Chanel’s Riviera: Glamour, Decadence, and Survival in Peace and War is, by turns, elaborately elegant and clear and forthright in its storytelling.
What I loved about Chanel’s Riviera:
-The author’s sense of purpose in writing - in telling “new” stories of Chanel and the French Riviera, by telling them together
-The contrast between the golden high life and the dark, approaching storm of WWII
What I didn’t love so much about Chanel’s Riviera:
-Storytelling veering off into listing... Lists, as a form, make the information difficult to retain and/or seem redundant
-The book’s organization... Overall it’s solid, but I wonder if PARTS in addition to chapters would clarify relationships between ideas
This book gave me a unique window on not just Chanel’s life, but the Riviera’s life in the buildup to, and during the trauma of, WWII. Thank you to Anne de Courcy, St. Martin’s Press, and Goodreads Giveaways for my advance readers’ edition.
What I loved about Chanel’s Riviera:
-The author’s sense of purpose in writing - in telling “new” stories of Chanel and the French Riviera, by telling them together
-The contrast between the golden high life and the dark, approaching storm of WWII
What I didn’t love so much about Chanel’s Riviera:
-Storytelling veering off into listing... Lists, as a form, make the information difficult to retain and/or seem redundant
-The book’s organization... Overall it’s solid, but I wonder if PARTS in addition to chapters would clarify relationships between ideas
This book gave me a unique window on not just Chanel’s life, but the Riviera’s life in the buildup to, and during the trauma of, WWII. Thank you to Anne de Courcy, St. Martin’s Press, and Goodreads Giveaways for my advance readers’ edition.
July 16, 2020
This account of Coco Chanel’s life, largely focused on her time in the South of France, feels like two entirely separate stories: The first half is light and entertaining, the second heavier and entrenched in the war. Both are interesting but have little in common either in tone or subject save for the presence of Chanel.
The first half of the book is a delightful romp through southern France before the war, told mostly through amusing anecdotes about Chanel and other interesting figures present in the area at the time.
The second half of the book focuses purely on the role of Chanel and the South of France in general during the war.
Though both are worthy topics, they are a bit difficult to reconcile as a cohesive whole. Picture a movie that begins as a frothy comedy which later takes a sudden, sharp right turn into a bleak war documentary.
While it’s certainly true that both must be included to accurately summarize Chanel’s time on the Riviera, the book’s leap from one to the other was jarring and the two halves of the story never end up feeling like they belong together in the same volume. Perhaps this is an issue of presentation and transition, or perhaps these two topics simply don’t belong together in one narrative, regardless of the fact that both were important (and concurrent) periods of Chanel’s life.
Despite the disconnect, I mostly enjoyed the book. The first half is much more pleasurable to read, certainly to an extent because it’s the “fun” part, but more because it’s the section of the book where we get more new information. Chanel’s life during and role in the war are well documented. There’s nothing new to report here. But of her time in the region prior to the war, there’s much to learn about Chanel’s life as well as the lives of those in her orbit from this account.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
The first half of the book is a delightful romp through southern France before the war, told mostly through amusing anecdotes about Chanel and other interesting figures present in the area at the time.
The second half of the book focuses purely on the role of Chanel and the South of France in general during the war.
Though both are worthy topics, they are a bit difficult to reconcile as a cohesive whole. Picture a movie that begins as a frothy comedy which later takes a sudden, sharp right turn into a bleak war documentary.
While it’s certainly true that both must be included to accurately summarize Chanel’s time on the Riviera, the book’s leap from one to the other was jarring and the two halves of the story never end up feeling like they belong together in the same volume. Perhaps this is an issue of presentation and transition, or perhaps these two topics simply don’t belong together in one narrative, regardless of the fact that both were important (and concurrent) periods of Chanel’s life.
Despite the disconnect, I mostly enjoyed the book. The first half is much more pleasurable to read, certainly to an extent because it’s the “fun” part, but more because it’s the section of the book where we get more new information. Chanel’s life during and role in the war are well documented. There’s nothing new to report here. But of her time in the region prior to the war, there’s much to learn about Chanel’s life as well as the lives of those in her orbit from this account.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
April 22, 2024
3,5
Interesantă în felul ei. Un tablou al amănuntelor legate de oamenii celebrii care populau Riviera franceza în epoca lui Coco Chanel. Nu ma mir ca a descumpănit cititorii care au cautat cu predilecție o carte despre creatoarea de moda, nu este asa ceva. Este despre un timp, un loc, o atmosfera, niște moravuri, niște nume, excese, frivolitati, picanterii, toate presărate printre evenimentele majore din anii '30, '40, inclusiv despre ocupație și război. In ultima jumătate CC apare sporadic, vânătoarea de evrei capata un loc important, dar este adevărat ca a fost un aspect major și ca viata pe Riviera ocupata de italieni a fost un ultimă palmă de pământ în care evreii au mai putut trăi cât de cât omenește. Pana când n-a mai fost.
Sunt mulți scriitori și oameni de arta pomeniți în carte, iar asta mi-a menținut interesul prezent, însă per ansamblu este o carte care funcționează mai mult pentru cei care nu doresc o informație aprofundata și esențială. Totuși, amănuntele din viața care ne înconjoară sunt foarte edificatoare de foarte multe ori, și cred sincer ca niciun adevăr nu e complet fără ele.
Câteva zeci de întâmplări sau detalii ar face deliciul unor amatori de picanterii si de inedit, însă nu am răbdare sa le scriu.
Mai spun și ca Chanel nu m-a interesat niciodată foarte mult, dar niciodată deloc, pentru ca moda, la fel ca orice act creator, înmagazinează o doza din spiritul unei epoci și mi se pare că are locul ei între arte, chiar dacă e considerata minoră de către unii dintre oameni. În urma lecturii asteia nu am foarte multa simpatie pentru ea. Rămâne, însă, un personaj de neocolit din lumea modei și își păstrează încă relevanța în istoria fashion-ului
Interesantă în felul ei. Un tablou al amănuntelor legate de oamenii celebrii care populau Riviera franceza în epoca lui Coco Chanel. Nu ma mir ca a descumpănit cititorii care au cautat cu predilecție o carte despre creatoarea de moda, nu este asa ceva. Este despre un timp, un loc, o atmosfera, niște moravuri, niște nume, excese, frivolitati, picanterii, toate presărate printre evenimentele majore din anii '30, '40, inclusiv despre ocupație și război. In ultima jumătate CC apare sporadic, vânătoarea de evrei capata un loc important, dar este adevărat ca a fost un aspect major și ca viata pe Riviera ocupata de italieni a fost un ultimă palmă de pământ în care evreii au mai putut trăi cât de cât omenește. Pana când n-a mai fost.
Sunt mulți scriitori și oameni de arta pomeniți în carte, iar asta mi-a menținut interesul prezent, însă per ansamblu este o carte care funcționează mai mult pentru cei care nu doresc o informație aprofundata și esențială. Totuși, amănuntele din viața care ne înconjoară sunt foarte edificatoare de foarte multe ori, și cred sincer ca niciun adevăr nu e complet fără ele.
Câteva zeci de întâmplări sau detalii ar face deliciul unor amatori de picanterii si de inedit, însă nu am răbdare sa le scriu.
Mai spun și ca Chanel nu m-a interesat niciodată foarte mult, dar niciodată deloc, pentru ca moda, la fel ca orice act creator, înmagazinează o doza din spiritul unei epoci și mi se pare că are locul ei între arte, chiar dacă e considerata minoră de către unii dintre oameni. În urma lecturii asteia nu am foarte multa simpatie pentru ea. Rămâne, însă, un personaj de neocolit din lumea modei și își păstrează încă relevanța în istoria fashion-ului
July 11, 2021
I received an ARC of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
I won this book almost two years ago, and have been trying to read it since then, but every time I picked it up I'd just have no interest in it whatsoever. From what I skimmed through, it seemed a little all over the place, like it's more a book about the history of the Riviera versus solely about Chanel, as so many other famous names were being constantly dropped. I usually like books about history, but this one just didn't do it for me.
I won this book almost two years ago, and have been trying to read it since then, but every time I picked it up I'd just have no interest in it whatsoever. From what I skimmed through, it seemed a little all over the place, like it's more a book about the history of the Riviera versus solely about Chanel, as so many other famous names were being constantly dropped. I usually like books about history, but this one just didn't do it for me.
February 10, 2020
First of all, thank you SO SO much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I'm so happy I got to read the book. It was truly a gift!
Second...You know when you have a good feeling about a book just by reading the synopsis? I had that this time. I wanted to know more about the Riviera's pre-war years and after WWII, but I never found a book that talked about that without using the setting as a prop to talk about someone else and forgetting about the Riviera altogether.
Anne de Courcy did an amazing job; she researched meticulously facts and events I had no clue they even happened, and let me just say that the idea to not make Chanel the sole protagonist but just a "main character" with a supporting cast of equally incredible people was a brilliant one. I'm all for political and social anecdotes, give me all the gossip!!
It also helped and made me love it even more that Chanel is not painted as a saint that had nothing to do with the Nazi regime, I never felt like the author was trying to defend her like I've seen so many authors do in the past.
The author described the devastating effects of the German invasion of France and the occupation that followed, the struggle of the people and the impact it had on a place as decadent, wealthy and full of influential people like the Riviera in such an engaging way I felt like I was glued to my kindle. Only pros can do that with history books.
Last but not least, ELSA SCHIAPARELLI made a brief appearance here and there, but she's a Queen, and seeing her thrive while Coco was bitter about her whole existence made me SO happy. 😂
Second...You know when you have a good feeling about a book just by reading the synopsis? I had that this time. I wanted to know more about the Riviera's pre-war years and after WWII, but I never found a book that talked about that without using the setting as a prop to talk about someone else and forgetting about the Riviera altogether.
Anne de Courcy did an amazing job; she researched meticulously facts and events I had no clue they even happened, and let me just say that the idea to not make Chanel the sole protagonist but just a "main character" with a supporting cast of equally incredible people was a brilliant one. I'm all for political and social anecdotes, give me all the gossip!!
It also helped and made me love it even more that Chanel is not painted as a saint that had nothing to do with the Nazi regime, I never felt like the author was trying to defend her like I've seen so many authors do in the past.
The author described the devastating effects of the German invasion of France and the occupation that followed, the struggle of the people and the impact it had on a place as decadent, wealthy and full of influential people like the Riviera in such an engaging way I felt like I was glued to my kindle. Only pros can do that with history books.
Last but not least, ELSA SCHIAPARELLI made a brief appearance here and there, but she's a Queen, and seeing her thrive while Coco was bitter about her whole existence made me SO happy. 😂
March 18, 2020
I was so excited to dig into this book since I have a trip planned to the French Riviera this summer. (We’ll see about that.) Unfortunately, I was disappointed. This book digs into the idyllic Cote d’Azur and its glamorous residents. Chanel owned her only real home there, called La Pausa. She, and the other artists and literati, spent a lot of time carousing and entertaining one another. I enjoyed learning about Chanel’s love life and her incredible work ethic. The book is full of notable people, like the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, Churchill, Somerset Maugham, Picasso, Dali, etc. I got bogged down in the details of some of the lesser known figures. Many of Chanel’s friends were, frankly, not very nice. Lots of affairs and drug use and bad behavior. At the beginning of WWII, the Riviera was mostly immune to what was going on elsewhere in Europe. Wealth and prestige allowed them to ignore what was coming. Chanel made some questionable choices during the war and found that her celebrity and status as a fashion designer offered her some degree of protection. De Courcy weaves together the war stories of these ultra wealthy people along with the experiences of regular people. Overall I felt that the book tried to do too much. I had trouble staying focused and had to force myself to stick with it. My biggest takeaway is that I now want some of Chanel’s beach pajamas, pictured on the front cover. Wonder if they still make those?!
January 10, 2020
This book was about two things: the life of Coco Chanel and the life of people, mostly expats and wealthy, in the Riviera in the time between the World Wars and during WWII. On the life of Chanel, it felt rather underdeveloped, as not enough time was dedicated in this book to really understanding Chanel or explaining her life. She would appear or be thrown in at random points, so you never really knew what was happening to her or why she was included in this book. On the situation in the French Riviera, it felt very strange to be reading about only the lives of expats, even those who stayed through the war, as I did not particularly care about the specific hospital where random English nurse Elsie Gladman wrote or other specific people, as much as I would have liked a general descritipion of life in the Riviera in these times. I did find it interesting to learn about how the Italian soldiers acted, particularly in their safeguarding of the Jewish population, but I do not feel that the life of Jews, French or foreign, in the Riviera was focussed on. At the crux of it, this book was doing too much and not using enough sources or organization to create an informative, cohesive book on life in the Riviera nor a biography of the life of Chanel at this time.
A free copy of this book was received through NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
A free copy of this book was received through NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
January 16, 2020
I am so glad I read this book!! I love history and I love books based in and around WW2, but this one added another dimension... Coco Chanel and fashion. At first I kind of thought to myself that this might not work for me, but the way the author wrote this book changed my mind!
I didn't realize how connected she was. Churchill, the abdicated King, Edward and so many more!
The first chapter was a little hard to get through, but that was because of the number of people that were introduced. That was a theme throughout, but once the author included the war and what was transpiring at the same time, it made this book so interesting. I learned new things about the war, especially about the Italians! And I most certainly learned new things about Coco Chanel, some good and some not so good.
But what impressed me the most was the amount of research that was done to write this book. Anne DeCourcy's ability to take all this information and put it into a book that is not just informative and but a good read. Amazing!!
If you like history, WW2, society, fashion and a amazing research, You will love this book!
I didn't realize how connected she was. Churchill, the abdicated King, Edward and so many more!
The first chapter was a little hard to get through, but that was because of the number of people that were introduced. That was a theme throughout, but once the author included the war and what was transpiring at the same time, it made this book so interesting. I learned new things about the war, especially about the Italians! And I most certainly learned new things about Coco Chanel, some good and some not so good.
But what impressed me the most was the amount of research that was done to write this book. Anne DeCourcy's ability to take all this information and put it into a book that is not just informative and but a good read. Amazing!!
If you like history, WW2, society, fashion and a amazing research, You will love this book!
May 25, 2023
Such a frustrating book. It feels as if the author didn’t have enough material for a book on Chanel alone and had to fill out with myriad other secondary characters. None of which were then given enough space and time to become memorable in their own right. Although the stories of the Oppenheimers, Fischers, Selzs, Frenkel’s et al could have been interesting there were so many I couldn’t even keep track of them.
Occasionally ´headliners’ such as the Windsors or Churchill make cameo appearances, there’s nothing to link them to Chanel.
The privations imposed by both Vichy and the Germans are detailed, but again Chanel’s own role as a collaborator (or not) isn’t fully addressed in any detail.
I ´d hoped for better
Occasionally ´headliners’ such as the Windsors or Churchill make cameo appearances, there’s nothing to link them to Chanel.
The privations imposed by both Vichy and the Germans are detailed, but again Chanel’s own role as a collaborator (or not) isn’t fully addressed in any detail.
I ´d hoped for better
March 3, 2020
I received an advanced reader copy through goodreads. I abandoned the book after 69 pages. The content was too gossipy and disorganized.
April 12, 2020
I’m torn in too many ways to succinctly,perhaps fairly perhaps not, tying monumental torturous history to societal contretemps. The moods are,at times, a bridge too far.
There is no question that Coco Chanel was a powerful talented personality who managed to live in the Ritz while Parisians were dying,suffering and starving, and Jews were rounded- up and imprisoned in Drancy to later be railroaded to Auschwitz. A part of me asks what would I do and for that I have no honest answer.
When the narrative moves from Paris to the Cote d’Azur and the horrors of the Vichy collaboration orchestrated byMarshall Pétain,I found it to be more grounded and serious.
Finally: An outrageous blurb from The Washington Times: AMUSING AND BREEZILY READABLE is soul sapping.
There is no question that Coco Chanel was a powerful talented personality who managed to live in the Ritz while Parisians were dying,suffering and starving, and Jews were rounded- up and imprisoned in Drancy to later be railroaded to Auschwitz. A part of me asks what would I do and for that I have no honest answer.
When the narrative moves from Paris to the Cote d’Azur and the horrors of the Vichy collaboration orchestrated byMarshall Pétain,I found it to be more grounded and serious.
Finally: An outrageous blurb from The Washington Times: AMUSING AND BREEZILY READABLE is soul sapping.
March 2, 2020
Up from 2.5 . The parts I was most interested in were how the Italians were so much less anti-Jewish than the French, and also the wartime experience of the Jews in the south of France. This book reminds me never to forget that anti Jewish actions are both enthusiastically and tacitly supported by many, many people.
August 10, 2019
This was a Goodreads giveaway winner...
When I first saw this book was going to be published early next year, I couldn't wait to read it. My delight in being a Goodreads giveaway reader was unrivaled.
It started out reminding me of a book I read last year, "The Riviera Set: Glitz, Glamour, and the Hidden World of High Society" by Mary S. Lovell, in that it focused on the frivolous, wealthy, and elegant society (lots of name dropping throughout) hanging out and showing off on the Riviera, just before the outbreak of the war.
But then the author tricked me and made what I thought would be a tantalizing romp amongst the rich and famous into so much more. With the start of World War II the reader is drawn into the horrifying reality that touched the lives of those on the Riviera, and beyond; discovering the tragedies, deceptions, and heroics that would change their lives forever. I definitely recommend this to those interested in this subject.
Side note:
As this was such an advanced copy none of the illustrations were included. I'll have to get a copy when it's published so I can see them.
When I first saw this book was going to be published early next year, I couldn't wait to read it. My delight in being a Goodreads giveaway reader was unrivaled.
It started out reminding me of a book I read last year, "The Riviera Set: Glitz, Glamour, and the Hidden World of High Society" by Mary S. Lovell, in that it focused on the frivolous, wealthy, and elegant society (lots of name dropping throughout) hanging out and showing off on the Riviera, just before the outbreak of the war.
But then the author tricked me and made what I thought would be a tantalizing romp amongst the rich and famous into so much more. With the start of World War II the reader is drawn into the horrifying reality that touched the lives of those on the Riviera, and beyond; discovering the tragedies, deceptions, and heroics that would change their lives forever. I definitely recommend this to those interested in this subject.
Side note:
As this was such an advanced copy none of the illustrations were included. I'll have to get a copy when it's published so I can see them.
August 12, 2019
I began reading the book with the idea it was mainly about Coco Chanel and the Riviera set. However, I found that section gossipy and so full of name-dropping as it detailed the hedonistic lifestyle of the wealthy and famous that I was ready to abandon the book. Then World War II began.
The author illustrates in tragic and horrifying detail what happened to the foreigners, refugees, Jews, and French citizens along the Riviera as well as other parts of France as the German Occupation unfolds. This was why she had introduced so many people on the Riviera in the first part - so she could detail what happened to them. She continues to follow Chanel as well although I felt the details about her possible collaboration was very vague and it seemed the author tried to defend her a bit too much. This part of the book was worth the read which resulted in the 4 rating.
The book still needs a bit of proofing. For instance, Chapter 15 is recorded as Chapter 13. The illustrations were not yet included in the ARC which was disappointing. This was a goodreads giveaway and this review is my opinion.
The author illustrates in tragic and horrifying detail what happened to the foreigners, refugees, Jews, and French citizens along the Riviera as well as other parts of France as the German Occupation unfolds. This was why she had introduced so many people on the Riviera in the first part - so she could detail what happened to them. She continues to follow Chanel as well although I felt the details about her possible collaboration was very vague and it seemed the author tried to defend her a bit too much. This part of the book was worth the read which resulted in the 4 rating.
The book still needs a bit of proofing. For instance, Chapter 15 is recorded as Chapter 13. The illustrations were not yet included in the ARC which was disappointing. This was a goodreads giveaway and this review is my opinion.
November 5, 2019
Although not a biography of Coco Chanel in any sense, the author uses Chanel's life and her "group" among those living on the Riviera as a touchstone to discuss life before(late 1920's early 1930's) during (1940's) and after (liberation) in the South of France. We often see a great deal (fiction & non fiction) written about the Nazi Occupation of Paris or areas around and above Paris but are less likely to learn of the privations enforced by the Vichey Government and, ultimately what was a Nazi occupation in the South. Engagingly written, it begins as a kind of gossipy tale of life among the celebs and wealthy along the Riviera but about midway through you begin to see the fabric torn away. From the deportations to the transfer to the camps, starvation and extremely reduced living situations, neither money nor celebrity kept people safe.. Collaboration was often the order of the day. And once liberation came, judgement came with it. A very engaging book esp for those interested in this period of time along the Riveria. Thank you to Byrd's Books for providing me with this ARC.
August 31, 2019
Goodreads Giveaway. This well researched book is a pleasing blend of World War II history and biographical tidbits of the well known personages who lived or frequented the French Riviera during the period. The German occupation of France, often overshadowed by other fronts, caused great hardships for all and French Jews fed the Nazi death camps. The French Resistance played a major role in the Allies win and was made possible by the courage and conviction of ordinary citizens in small villages and outlying farms. I have long been intrigued by Chanel and recognized the names of many cited re Picasso, Collette and many others but knew little of their lives. This is a good choice for any history buff or someone like this reader, who just likes finding out a little something more. Contains footnotes and bibliography also for more in-depth research. Interesting and informative.
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