Chanel and Her World by Edmonde Charles-Roux (1920-2016) - 1979

256 pages with photographs, illustrations, drawings, plates and index. Quarto (11" x 9 1/4") bound in original publisher's pictorial wrappers. First edition. Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883–1971) is a fashion icon unlike any other. She invented modern clothing for women: at the height of the Belle Époque, she stripped women of their corsets and feathers, bobbed their hair, put them in bathing suits, and sent them out to get tanned in the sun. She introduced slacks, costume jewelry, and the exquisitely comfortable suit. She made the first couture perfume—No. 5—which remains the most popular scent ever created. In this beautiful volume, the glorious life of the incomparable Coco Chanel shines again through hundreds of illustrations and the lively prose of Edmonde Charles-Roux, her official biographer and close friend. Chanel knew and collaborated with the likes of Picasso, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Cocteau, Jean Renoir, and Visconti—even as she matched their modernist innovations by liberating women from the prison of 19th-century fashion and introducing a whole new concept of elegance. The staggering collection of photographs amassed by the author over decades of friendship with Chanel sheds new light on one of the great stories of the modern age. "A model pictorial biography." Condition: Corners bumped, light edge wear, small note to page 138 and note at back end page else a very good copy.