The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2021 - Issue 29

Images courtesy of Caroline Young bitebookreview wouldn't let her marry him because of her lowly status. Even more, when he died in a motor accident in December 1919 after seeing her before travelling to spend Christmas with his sister and wife. Throughout this book, you feel like you’re walking in Coco Chanel’s footsteps as the author describes the influences on the couturier’s designs, her desire for love and the good life, and the 1920s’ Paris that defined her. “I was working towards a new so- ciety,” Coco said. “Up until then, they had been clothes designed for women who were useless and idle, women whose lady's maids had to pass them their stockings. I now had customers who were busy women; a busy woman needs to feel comfortable in her clothes.” We meet her lovers - Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Rus- sia, Pierre Reverdy, a friend of the artist Picasso, and Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster whom she refused to mar- ry during their ten years together but who influenced her English designs. Paul Iribe, an illustrator, costume and interior designer, and officer Hans Günther, Baron von Dincklage during German’s occupation of France, which would have cost Gabrielle’s life if her friend, Winston Churchill, hadn’t stepped in while she was being interrogated. The properties highlighted in this book include Étienne’s Royal- lieu chateau, where Coco stayed for several years, the mezzanine at 21 rue Cambon that Boy Capel leased for her to sell her hats, the apartment on avenue Gabriel she shared with him and where she demonstrated early interior design skills. “When looking for pieces to furnish the place, she saw a Coromandel screen for the first time and was struck by its beauty, recalling that she thought, ‘I’d faint with joy.’” Coco also lived in a ground floor apartment at 46 quai Debilly and a rented home in the Paris suburb of Rueil that had once served as a secret love nest with Capel. Then as a tomb of mourn- ing following his death with painted black walls, black sheets on her bed, and black curtains draped from the window. She then moved to an art nouveau villa, Bel Respiro, on avenue Alphonse de Neuville, in Garches, where she painted the traditional shut- ters black. However, of all the properties, she mostly stayed at the Hotel Ritz in Paris. We get a further taste of Coco’s interior design skills of pale colours, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and a mix of modernisation with Renaissance and Louis XIV pieces and Oriental style to create a contemporary 1920s interior at the 29 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré apartment. She told Paul Morand, “Plush carpet everywhere, ‘colorado claro’ in colour, with silky tints, like good cigars, woven to my specifications, and brown velvet curtains with gold braiding that look like coronets, girdled in yellow silk from Winston’s.” More details of how her apartment looked included upholstering her haute-époque chairs with beige satin and placing comfort- able sofas in the rooms, including a sizeable orange velvet sofa. “Two side tables, which were decorated with crystal-ball lamps, and parchment lampshades, had been bought from Marchesa Luisa Casati, an eccentric who lived at the Ritz and had recently gone bankrupt.” Coco had rare editions that filled the shelves of her library, with natural wood, old carpets, beige furnishings and a marble torso. Her bedroom had large mirror panels, Coromandel screens, a vast Venetian mirror decorated with crystal flowers. Her bed was enclosed with cream silk curtains and had dark fur draped across it and a crystal chandelier hanging above. Her taste was so revered that her intrigued guests often bribed the maid to show them her room. “I want to see what she sleeps in,” said Maurice de Rothschild. However, he found the room was empty, the bed was made, and white cotton sheets under the covers. One of two fascinating details that stood out in Coco’s interi- or designs was a 1921 commissioned crystal chandelier, with smoked crystal, amethyst fruits and flowers, the metal number ‘5s’ and the initials ‘B’ for Boy Capel and ‘C’ for Coco Chanel. “She brought back mirrors from her trip to Venice, later discov- ering they’d once been part of the treasures of a church in Seville.” She also acquired a meteorite which she rested in marble, and placed a fifth-century Greek marble torso on her mantelpiece. The other was a mirrored staircase she had installed in 1928 at her 31 rue Cambon salon, where she held her shows, which led from the ground floor to her private apartments. “It offered a multidimensional view of her salon, a fractured reflection of the many women seated to watch her show or to admire themselves in Chanel gowns. Chanel would tell her friend Claude Delay, ‘I spent my life on stairs,’ and perhaps this staircase in the salon reminded her of the stone steps at Aubazine.” Reading Living With Coco Chanel , I have learned more about Coco Chanel than I ever knew before. This book beautifully records the couturier’s emotions, frustrations, happiness, tem- peraments, close friendships and acquaintances, successes and failures. Although she had several lovers, I do not believe Coco ever got over the death of Boy Capel. She lived well, brought joy to many women through her clothing and perfume, and proved that a lowly status girl could make it to the heights of society. Based in Scotland, Caroline Young’s other works include Kitted Out: Style and Youth Culture in the Second World War, Hitchcock’s Heroines, Style Tribes, Tartan and Tweed, and Roman Holiday: The Secret Life of Hollywood in Rome. She will be releasing an- other book based on Coco Chanel called What Coco Chanel Can Teach You About Fashion. To discover the true nature of the iconic Coco Chanel and her life, indulge in Living with Coco Chanel available at Amazon, Wa- terstones, WH Smith and other participating book stores. www.carolinejyoung.com