Chanel: Her Life, Her World

Charles-Roux, a French writer and former editor of French Vogue who knew Chanel, wrote this biography in 1975. The reference has not verified the book's detailed contents.

The subject is Gabrielle Chanel, who built one of the most valuable brands in luxury from an origin in poverty. The established elements of her life include her childhood in an orphanage after her mother's death, her work as a seamstress and brief attempt at a singing career, her support by wealthy lovers who financed her first millinery shop, the opening of shops in Deauville and Biarritz during the First World War, and the establishment of the couture house in Paris.

The commercial contributions are the reason she matters to business readers. She used jersey, a knit fabric previously used for underwear, for outerwear, which was cheaper and permitted the unstructured silhouette she wanted. She removed the corset from women's clothing and created garments that permitted movement, which corresponded to changes in how women lived. She created Chanel No 5 in 1921 and licensed it to the Wertheimer family, whose company built it into the most commercially successful fragrance ever produced, and the resulting arrangement produced decades of litigation between Chanel and the Wertheimers over the royalties. She popularised costume jewellery worn alongside real jewellery, and the little black dress.

Her conduct during the German occupation, including a relationship with a German intelligence officer and an attempt to use Nazi property laws to recover control of the perfume business from its Jewish owners, is documented and is the aspect on which biographies differ most in emphasis.

Charles-Roux's biography is French, from 1975, and personally connected to its subject. Picardie's later biography, also in this reference, covers the same territory with more recent research.