''The Allure of Chanel'' () are the memoirs of the French fashion designer

Coco Chanel Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...

, told to her friend

Paul Morand Paul Morand (13 March 1888 – 24 July 1976) was a French author whose short stories and novellas were lauded for their style, wit and descriptive power. His most productive literary period was the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. He was mu ...

. The book was written in the winter of 1946 and is based on a series of conversations held at a hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where Chanel had invited Morand to write her memoirs. The conversations took place during the evenings and each night Morand stayed up to write notes. The notes were published in French in 1976 and in English in 2008, translated by Euan Cameron. A second English edition was published in 2012, expanded with original drawings by

Karl Lagerfeld Karl Otto Lagerfeld (; 10 September 1933 – 19 February 2019) was a German fashion designer, creative director, artist and photographer. He was known as the creative director of the French fashion house Chanel, a position held from 1983 ...

Reception

Vicki Woods of ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'' wrote in 2008 that the book "reads beautifully", and continued: "Paul Morand was her friend, not a predatory journalist: he let Chanel tell it as she wanted to, and what she wanted was to control her own legend: big up the dazzling bits ... and lose the misery-memoir bits (except those useful to 'my legend')."

References

External links

''The Allure of Chanel''
at the French publisher's website
''The Allure of Chanel''
at the British publisher's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Allure of Chanel 1976 non-fiction books Cultural depictions of Coco Chanel French memoirs French-language books Works by Paul Morand