Volume 22, Number 20 · December 11, 1975
Coco's Closet
By Francine Gray
Chanel
by Edmonde Charles-Roux
Knopf, 380 pp., $15.00
Remembering Coco Chanel when I saw her in the 1950s, I associate her with blackness, often chastened by a trim of white: the enormous number of black dresses brightened with a white starched collar or ruffle; the flat grosgrain bows and white gardenias posed on her models' heads; the black tips of the cream sling pumps which became one of her signatures; the black lacquered chinoiseries, the black Coromandel screens in her living room; the often-told anecdote that upon the death of one of her lovers she had had her bedroom totally redesigned in black, down to sheets and pillow cases (a few days later she had it redone in pink). Even the downstairs boutique of her shop in the rue Cambon, suffused with the dark-flower scent of Number Five, had a smokiness about it that contrasted greatly with the shrill cream-and-gilt decors of Balmain and Dior. And there was the blackness of Chanel's hair, the coal-black glint of her very mean eyes.
Review, 2678 words
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