Garbage and Lies
1 star
This book, like many others in the series, does the girl boss shit that I loathe so much. This one is even worse because... There are blatant lies in it! Like how corsetry was why people couldn't breathe (rather than them being ill-fitting or improperly/overly laced). It also claims that she showed women that they didn't need corsets or sequins to be stylish! Which... just feels like it's shaming other people's fashion choices, honestly.
Oh, and it casually ignores the fact that Coco Chanel was a Nazi informant who wasn't charged as a collaborator because Winston Churchill intervened? Like, that fact alone should've given the author (and publisher) pause... But it's fine! She was a celebrated fashion designer! Ugh.
Also, amusingly, portraying a girl in a school as being weird and different for liking to sew. When Chanel was a child and would've been of age, it would've been part …
This book, like many others in the series, does the girl boss shit that I loathe so much. This one is even worse because... There are blatant lies in it! Like how corsetry was why people couldn't breathe (rather than them being ill-fitting or improperly/overly laced). It also claims that she showed women that they didn't need corsets or sequins to be stylish! Which... just feels like it's shaming other people's fashion choices, honestly.
Oh, and it casually ignores the fact that Coco Chanel was a Nazi informant who wasn't charged as a collaborator because Winston Churchill intervened? Like, that fact alone should've given the author (and publisher) pause... But it's fine! She was a celebrated fashion designer! Ugh.
Also, amusingly, portraying a girl in a school as being weird and different for liking to sew. When Chanel was a child and would've been of age, it would've been part of the school curriculum for girls to learn sewing and other domestic skills. Absolutely bonkers, especially when the mini biography at the end highlights this fact.