The Investor's Shelf — one person
Coco Chanel
Founder of the House of Chanel; defined twentieth-century women's ready-to-wear.
8 biographies about them
Biographies about them 8
A crowded biographical shelf that mostly turns on the wartime collaboration question.
Edmonde Charles-Roux · 1975 · The foundational biography; every later book argues with it.
Axel Madsen · 1990 · The standard biography before Chaney and Vaughan.
Justine Picardie · 2009 · House-access biography; good on the business, softer on the war.
Hal Vaughan · 2011 · Declassified files on her Abwehr connection; contested by the house.
Rhonda K. Garelick · 2014 · Reads the brand as politics; the most intellectually serious account.
Paul Morand · 2008 · As-told-to: Morand's record of her 1946 conversations, published posthumously.
Tilar J. Mazzeo · 2010 · One product's history, including the Wertheimer deal that made the money.