Djuna Barnes was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer best known for her novel Nightwood (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist literature.
Chanel S.A. is a French privately held company owned by Alain Wertheimer and Gérard Wertheimer, grandsons of Pierre Wertheimer, who was an early business partner of the couturière Coco Chanel. Chanel is a luxury company that focuses on high fashion and ready-made clothes, luxury products, and accessories. In her youth, Gabrielle Chanel gained the nickname Coco from her time as a chanteuse. As a fashion designer, Coco Chanel catered to women's taste for elegance in dress, with blouses and suits, trousers and dresses, and jewellery of simple design, that replaced the opulent, over-designed, and constrictive clothes and accessories of 19th-century fashion. The Chanel product brands have been personified by male and female fashion models, idols and actresses, including Inès de La Fressange, Catherine Deneuve, Carole Bouquet, Vanessa Paradis, Nicole Kidman, Anna Mouglalis, Audrey Tautou, Keira Knightley, Kristen Stewart, Pharrell Williams, Cara Delevingne and Marilyn Monroe.
Hedwig "Vicki" Baum was an Austrian writer. She is known for the novel Menschen im Hotel, one of her first international successes. It was made into a 1932 film and a 1989 broadway musical.
Betty Catroux is a former Chanel model, and fashion icon. She has been cited as a muse by both Yves Saint Laurent and Tom Ford.
Chanel No. 5 was the first perfume launched by French couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. The scent formula for the fragrance was compounded by French-Russian chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux. The design of its bottle has been an important part of the product's allure.
Paul Morand was a French author whose short stories and novellas were lauded for their style, wit and descriptive power. His most productive literary period was the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. He was much admired by the upper echelons of society and the artistic avant-garde who made him a cult favorite. He has been categorized as an early Modernist and Imagist.
James Frey is an American writer and businessman. His first two books, A Million Little Pieces (2003) and My Friend Leonard (2005), were bestsellers marketed as memoirs. Large parts of the stories were later found to be exaggerated or fabricated, sparking a media controversy. His 2008 novel Bright Shiny Morning was also a bestseller.
Linda Morand is an American fashion model, cover-girl and haute couture mannequin during the 1960s and 1970s. She appeared in national ads, magazine covers, TV commercials and national catalogs. She is currently a fashion archivist and consultant.
Elizabeth Robins Pennell was an American writer who, for most of her adult life, made her home in London. A recent researcher summed her up as "an adventurous, accomplished, self-assured, well-known columnist, biographer, cookbook collector, and art critic"; in addition, she wrote travelogues, mainly of European cycling voyages, and memoirs, centred on her London salon. Her biographies included the first in almost a century of the proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, one of her uncle the folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland, and one of her friend the painter Whistler. In recent years, her art criticism has come under scrutiny, and her food criticism has been reprinted.
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a French fashion designer, Nazi spy, and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her design aesthetic in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a 2009 French film directed by Jan Kounen. It was chosen as the Closing Film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and was shown on 24 May 2009.
Coco and Igor is a 2002 novel by Chris Greenhalgh. Set mainly in Paris in 1920, it is based on a possible real-life affair between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky.
The Downing Street Years is a memoir by Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, covering her premiership of 1979 to 1990. It was accompanied by a four-part BBC television series of the same name.
The Man in a Hurry is a 1941 novel by the French writer Paul Morand. It tells the story of a busy Paris antiques dealer who does not seem to be able to relax and settle down, not even when he finally falls in love, gets married and has a child. According to Morand, the main character is largely autobiographical. An English translation by Euan Cameron was published by Pushkin Press in 2015.
New York is a 1930 travel book by the French writer Paul Morand. Morand visited New York four times between 1925 and 1929 and shares his experiences from those trips, with a non-native reader in mind. An English translation by Hamish Miles was published in 1930.
Venices is a 1971 book by the French writer Paul Morand. Morand recounts his travels to Venice, often in the company of other famous writers and artists. An English translation by Euan Cameron was published in 2002.
Open All Night is a 1922 short story collection by the French writer Paul Morand. The book was the basis for a 1924 American film adaptation.
Black Magic is a 1928 book by the French writer Paul Morand. It focuses on Morand's travels in Sub-Saharan Africa and his encounters with African cultures, which he admires. The book was published in English in 1929, translated by Hamish Miles and with illustrations by Aaron Douglas.
Hecate and Her Dogs is a novel by the French writer Paul Morand. It is set in Tangier in the 1920s, where a foreigner working for a bank takes on a mistress, who turns out to be sexually perverse, possibly a criminal. An English translation by David Coward was published in 2009.
Cora Emmanuel is a French fashion model.
