by Karen Karbo

How much more fun school would have been if our “lessons” had been taught by witty and wise instructors like Karen Karbo.  The author's latest work, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO COCO CHANEL: Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman, elucidates Chanel's major impact on modern women and her contribution to their quality of  life. 

This deft recounting of the significant  facts of Chanel's life, and her subsequent reactions to her destiny, is a true rags to riches story, but with many variations of the history in the telling of the tale by the woman who lived it. 

The many references and entertaining quotes assure us that Karbo really  knows (and enjoys!) her subject. She extracts  the essence from the “Chanelore,” a word we come across repeatedly, and has a good time chatting with us as if we're old friends.  We happily follow our raconteur as the times and the lovers, friends and acquaintances come to life.  
    
We enter each chapter eager to learn more.  In the beginning there was self-invention.  Karbo: “Self-invention is an act of the imagination, the ongoing writing of an enormous never-ending novel in which you are the protagonist.”  Chanel was adept.  Following comes “fearlessness.”  Chanel: “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” (Which doesn't leave you with a loving entourage.)  In fact, Chanel was the ultimate outsider who through talent and determination made her world “the world.”

 Part of the charm of this book is that Karbo expands on these ideas with personal reflections and details.  Her search for an authentic Chanel jacket (from e-bay to Paris in real time) becomes a prop for understanding Chanel's challenges and innovations – why should you appreciate style, luxury, fashion?  Karbo is not a “fashionista” (which put me at ease) and the book is not an adulation of this world. When Karbo explains the construction of the celebrated Chanel jacket and Chanel's meager dressmaking skills you realize the value of simplicity, fine craftsmanship and comfort in all things. 
    
Karbo on Chanel: “Aside from her inborn sense of style, and her unerring ability to see at a glance what was aesthetically incorrect, she was blessed with the ability to inhabit her moment and thus take full advantage of whatever dropped into her lap . . .”  This, of course, includes people and their fortunes and influence.

When she was at the height of her usefulness Misia Sert  was Coco's friend and introduced her to the elite.  Misia's pals, among many, included Jean Cocteau, Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky (note: Coco and Igor, the film, coming soon – the book is available).  Colette, as a friend, and her Claudine stories, as an influence on the popular conscience of the times, also figured in Chanel's biographical landscape.

As a veteran of the book business, I was fascinated by the description  of “Claudine” as a generator in her era of what  today we call “sidelines” - like soap - or even a total “look” belonging to an imagined character - think “Annie Hall.” The “Claudine” influence in the  air of the times helped ready the way for the Chanel type and her revolution.     

Chanel started her couture business with a loan from her wealthy lover but paid it back in full as soon as she was able.  Being independent was an axiom. “The engine that drove Chanel's life was work, perfectionism, and a determination to avoid having to rely on anyone . . .”  Coco Chanel was “social” when it was good for business.  Her stylistic rivals, never friends, included Paul Poiret early on and Elsa Schiaparelli later. And there is the story of Chanel No. 5 – another captivating entanglement of business and personal relationships. 

In fact Chanel lived a long time and suffered terribly from loneliness in the latter part of her work-filled existence.  She closed her fashion business in 1939 and made a successful business comeback years later when she was seventy, but it did not recompense the solitude.
     
Both world wars played fateful roles in Chanel's life– bringing in turn success and failure. Karbo does not avoid shining a light on Coco's second war.  “Chanel found WWII to be uninteresting, vulgar and inconvenient, and so she turned her back on her city, the community, and her industry.”  She isolated herself in her rooms at the Hotel Ritz and fell in love with a Nazi (a PR man who never wore a uniform and whose mother was English). The lives of artists outside their art is an ever-intriguing subject.
     
Whether we accept, reject, or question the life lessons of THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO CHANEL, considering them is an amusing and informative exercise.  There is female identity in toto to consider  -  with lots about femininity, male-female relationships, and passion. Karbo adroitly mixes this study with views on success, business, and time-management – the whole shitload (a good word I picked up in reading Karbo!)

(reviewed by S P Rosenberg, book-buyer for many years chez-Brentano's, Paris)