The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman

Things I Learned: Coco Chanel came up with my favorite quote about style: "Elegance is refusal." I always thought it was Diana Vreeland, but no, Coca said it first.

Coco Chanel was a woman ahead of her time, but she was able to pay the game by her own rules, and by bending the rules of the old game.

She was in many ways a brilliant visionary as a designer, but she was also able to look around her and make something new from what was available ... and charge a fortune for it. She was privileged to be in Paris society at a time of artistic and cultural revolution. She knew Stravinsky, Diaghalev, Cocteau and Pierre Reverdy, and a great many other social and cultural bright lights. Her influence on fashion is still felt today: I was show more perusing Bill Cunningham's style articles on NY Times last night and there were women in their Chanel jackets and skirts, now courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld.

Karbo paints a picture of a fashion icon who was indomitable, took crap from no one and lived Wallis Simpson's dictum: "Never complain, never explain." She wasn't an easy person to love, but she got the job done. She built a fashion empire that lasts. show less

This was a nice, conversational book. It told about Coco Chanel's life and how she lived it, and drew lessons from various points in that life. It did provide a balanced look, not all Chanel-could-do-no-wrong, which I liked. The author told stories about herself as well, as they related to the chapters and Chanel.

Not a heavy philosophical tome, but a nice read.

A little dry in places and she tends to veer off on tangents, but it kept my attention to the extent that I read it all in one sitting. Overall, an interesting read about a fascinating woman.

Annoyingly written, but it did make me want to read a real biography of Chanel...

Ok, so I couldn't even read this one. I read a few pages and was bored. Usually I give a book a chance, but the writing steered me away from wanting to read more.

So much fun to read!