Description
Book SynopsisFar from worrying about the onset of war, in the spring of 1938 the burning question on the French Riviera was whether one should curtsey to the Duchess of Windsor. Few of those who had settled there thought much about what was going on in the rest of Europe. It was a golden, glamorous life, far removed from politics or conflict.
Featuring a sparkling cast of artists, writers and historical figures including Winston Churchill, Daisy Fellowes, Salvador Dalí, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Eileen Gray and Edith Wharton, with the enigmatic Coco Chanel at its heart, CHANEL''S RIVIERA is a captivating account of a period that saw some of the deepest extremes of luxury and terror in the whole of the twentieth century.
From Chanel''s first summer at her Roquebrune villa La Pausa (in the later years with her German lover) amid the glamour of the pre-war parties and casinos in Antibes, Nice and Cannes to the horrors of evacuation and the displacement of thousands of families
Trade Review
Providing insight into the occupation of France and its terrifying impact on rich and poor alike, you'll come away from reading it both better informed and utterly transported -- Francesca Brown * STYLIST magazine *
A riveting read about the best and very worst of times and at the heart of the story is the morally ambiguous (some may say morally bankrupt) Chanel herself. -- Sarra Manning * RED ONLINE *
A well-researched and compelling story. Drawing on an immense volume of material, she has succeeded not only in constructing an intriguing portrait of Chanel herself but also in expertly conjuring the two very different worlds that then existed side by side -- Selina Hastings * LITERARY REVIEW *
A highly amusing guide to the shenanigans, foibles and affairs of the rich and famous at a time when it seemed anyone who was anyone spent weeks at a time on the Riviera
... De Courcy has dug deep into a rich seam of stories about the coastal region of France
-- Anne Sebba * HISTORY TODAY *
Anne de Courcy's Chanel's Riviera gives us delicious gossip. France's leading designer was the epitome of
chic. When she acquired a magnificent villa on the Cote d'Azur, the rich and famous - among them Jean Cocteau, H. G. Wells, Salvador Dali (and, after the abdication, the Windsors) - followed. They created a gilded and hedonistic world, which continued until the fall of France in 1940.
-- A.W. Purdue * THES *
De Courcy is very powerful on the fall of France - the sorrow and the pity ... De Courcy, in this
gripping, rousing study, sees Chanel as a Marie Antoinette figure, simultaneously shrewd and other-worldly, protected by an armour of absolute self-interest. -- Roger Lewis * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
Fascinating ... By turns sunny and shady, this
beautifully written book illuminates a harrowing and occasionally surreal episode in 20th-century French history -- Martin Williams * COUNTRY LIFE *
Sparkling, anecdote-rich narrative -- Paula Byrne * THE TIMES *
