Elizabeth Matthews
Teoksen Different Like Coco tekijä
Tekijän teokset
Associated Works
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Sukupuoli
- female
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
Listat
Palkinnot
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Tilastot
- Teokset
- 8
- Also by
- 1
- Jäseniä
- 177
- Suosituimmuussija
- #121,427
- Arvio (tähdet)
- 3.9
- Kirja-arvosteluja
- 19
- ISBN:t
- 12
I sought out Different Like Coco after reading Annemarie van Haeringen's Coco and the Little Black Dress and finding it woefully inadequate in its treatment (or non-treatment) of Chanel's actions as a spy for the Nazis during World War II. I was curious to see if this far less inspirational aspect of the subject's life was similarly omitted in this work, and sure enough, it was. In Elizabeth Matthews' defense, although Chanel's love affair with a Nazi officer was common knowledge from the end of the war, more solid evidence of her role as an agent - apparently she had an agent number (F-7124) and a code name (Westminster) of her own - doesn't seem to have reached the popular consciousness until 2011, when Hal Vaughan’s Sleeping With The Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War was published. Unlike van Haeringen, who published the original Dutch-language version of her Coco and the Little Black Dress in 2013, after these revelations became public, Different Like Coco was published in 2007, so it's quite possible Matthews didn't have access to this information, which would make her own omission more forgivable.
Whatever the case may be, I still find it difficult to swallow an adulatory book about Chanel being presented to young readers, given what we now know about her life, and I simply couldn't take this one to heart. Chanel was an influential figure, and I wouldn't argue that her story should not be told, but being a Nazi is not a small foible or a personality quirk, and that part of her story should also be included, even if only in the back matter. Leaving this aside, I was also made somewhat uncomfortable by the treatment of weight in Matthews' text and artwork. I think the intent was to show that Coco, considered unfashionably thin in her youth, turned her difference into a strength, designing clothing more suited to her own body type, but the end product left a sour taste in my mouth. There was a feeling, perhaps accentuated by some of the artwork, which depicted the fashionably plump ladies in question in almost a porcine way, that not only had fashion left heavier-set women behind, but that said women had it coming, because Coco herself was body-shamed. Perhaps this too was unintentional, but that was the impression I took away, and I didn't care for its (forgive the pun) smallness.
In sum, I don't recommend this one. I think that I will give up on Coco biographies for now, rather than continue to hunt, as is my usual way.… (lisätietoja)