Coco Chanel

Award-winning author Susan Goldman Rubin introducesreaders to the most well-known fashion designerin the world, Coco Chanel. Beginning with the difficult years Chanel spent in an orphanage, Goldman Rubin traces Coco's development as a designer and demonstrates how her determination to be independent helped her gain worldwide recognition. Coco Chanel focuses on the obstacles Chanel faced as a financially independent woman in an era when women were expected to marry;as well as her fierce competition with the Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli;and some of her most memorable firsts for the fashion industry, including the little black dress, the quilted purse with gold chain, and the perfume Chanel No. 5.The book includes a bibliography, a list of where to see her work, and an index.