Coco Chanel
Chanel Had A Complicated Relationship With Jews — Until Karl Lagerfeld Showed Up
Perhaps Lagerfeld’s greatest service to the Chanel brand was his ability to erase its negative associations, including the founder’s anti-Semitism.
Maureen Chiquet: French Elegance From An American Jewish Woman
Experience with an anti-Semitic high school bully wound up making her a better leader.
Coco Chanel — and the Psychology of Scent
In her new book, “The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Intimate History of the World’s Most Famous Perfume,” Tilar Mazzeo reveals the complicated — and often scandalous — history of the world’s bestselling perfume. Mazzeo looks at the psychology and physiology of scent, how Coco Chanel’s personal experiences made their way into the fragrance, and the perfume’s unlikely success during WWII, when production was moved to New Jersey, thanks to a deal with the Jewish Wertheimer family. The Sisterhood spoke recently with Mazzeo about her book, how the famous fragrance paved the way for the celebrity scent boom of the last decade, and Chanel’s not so subtle Jewish problem.
Coco Chanel, 'Horizontal Collaboration,' and Outfitting Occupied Paris
The designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel had a well-documented affair with the Nazi officer Hans Gunther von Dincklage, with whom she lived at Paris’s Ritz hotel throughout the German occupation of France. But you wouldn’t know that from watching the new biopic “Coco Before Chanel” (French-language trailer below), which portrays Mme. Chanel as an up-by-her-two-toned-ballet-flats heroine — and leaves out her wartime whereabouts altogether.