Chanel's Riviera
Glamour, Decadence, and Survival in Peace and War, 1930-1944
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3.9 • 30 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In this captivating narrative, Chanel’s Riviera explores the fascinating world of the Cote d’Azur during a period that saw the deepest extremes of luxury and terror in the twentieth century.
The Cote d’Azur in 1938 was a world of wealth, luxury, and extravagance, inhabited by a sparkling cast of characters including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Joseph P. Kennedy, Gloria Swanson, Colette, the Mitfords, Picasso, Cecil Beaton, and Somerset Maugham. The elite flocked to the Riviera each year to swim, gamble, and escape from the turbulence plaguing the rest of Europe. At the glittering center of it all was Coco Chanel, whose very presence at her magnificently appointed villa, La Pausa, made it the ultimate place to be. Born an orphan, her beauty and formidable intelligence allured many men, but it was her incredible talent, relentless work ethic, and exquisite taste that made her an icon.
But this wildly seductive world was poised on the edge of destruction. In a matter of months, France surrendered to the Germans and the glamour of the pre-war parties and casinos gave way to the horrors of evacuation and the displacement of thousands of families during World War II. From the bitter struggle to survive emerged powerful stories of tragedy, sacrifice, and heroism.
Enriched by original research and de Courcy’s signature skill, Chanel’s Riviera brings the experiences of both rich and poor, protected and persecuted, to vivid life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist de Courcy (The Husband Hunters) portrays fashion designer Coco Chanel's French Riviera milieu from 1930 through the end of WWII in this dishy and well-researched account. At a time when the C te d'Azur had already become "the playground of the rich," Chanel bought 12 acres above the village of Roquebrune and built a villa modeled after the convent where she'd spent her adolescence. Writers and artists including Colette, Aldous Huxley, and Pablo Picasso had homes in the region, and Winston Churchill, Vladimir Nabokov, and Chanel's friend and lover Salvador Dal visited during summers of "feverish gaiety, threaded through with rumor and suspicion" as the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. After the fall of France in 1940, British nationals fled the Riviera, and de Courcy frequently and deservedly shifts the spotlight from Chanel to historical figures including Australian socialite Enid Furness, who helped Allied prisoners escape from a detention camp near the village of ze. De Courcy describes the impact of anti-Jewish laws and food shortages on those who remained in the region, but lets Chanel off the hook for her anti-Semitism and her affair with Nazi intelligence officer Hans von Dincklage, who helped to insulate the designer from wartime deprivations. Nevertheless, this fluidly written history succeeds in capturing the era's intoxicating mix of glitz and grit.
