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  • The Gospel According to Coco Chanel

  • Life Lessons from the World’s Most Elegant Woman
  • By: Karen Karbo
  • Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
  • Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (15 ratings)

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The Gospel According to Coco Chanel cover art

The Gospel According to Coco Chanel

By: Karen Karbo
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
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Publisher's Summary

Delving into the long, extraordinary life of renowned French fashion designer Coco Chanel, Karen Karbo has written a new kind of book, exploring Chanel’s philosophy on a range of universal themes—from style to passion, from money and success to femininity and living life on your own terms.

Chanel is credited not simply with giving us the little black dress and boxy jackets, but with popularizing pants for women and easy, practical clothes that allowed women a chic freedom they’d never known before. In her strong-headed, elegant, opinionated, passionate, entirely French way, Coco Chanel helped bring women into the modern era, and because of this she was the only person in fashion to be named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century.

Karen Karbo weaves Chanel’s life story into chapter themes that subtly convey life lessons and leave the reader utterly entranced with Chanel’s amazing individuality, confidence, and determination. The story of the designer’s extraordinary life and rise to unprecedented success is both compelling and admirable. And while the great Coco may have launched her singular empire a hundred years ago, her methods, attitude, and élan are as relevant and modern as ever, and perhaps more appealing. Chanel was a self-made girl who knew how to make do with less until she had more, discover and stay true to her own style, problem solve using the tools at hand, and do it all with seemingly effortless flair. The Gospel According to Coco Chanel is a captivating, offbeat look at style, celebrity, and self-invention—all held together with Karbo’s droll Chanel-style commentary and culled from an examination of Chanel’s difficult childhood and triumphant adulthood, passionate love affairs, career choices, habits, eccentricities, and personal philosophies.

©2009 Karen Karbo (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic Reviews

“Anyone with a good sense of humor should hugely enjoy, or should I say enjoie, Karen Karbo’s funny and stylish take on Coco Chanel. Like a little black dress, this handy life guide will take you from day into evening. K. K. on C. C.: oui, oui!” (Henry Alford, author of How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth))
“Wise, witty, and refreshingly colloquial, The Gospel According to Coco Chanel is an enchanting tour through the complex, often controversial life of fashion icon Chanel. Filled with relevant life lessons for the modern woman, this book is Karbo at her irrepressible best.” (Hilary Black, editor of The Secret Currency of Love: The Unabashed Truth about Women, Money, and Relationships)

What listeners say about The Gospel According to Coco Chanel

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A reminder... an amazing woman, strength, creativity, beauty, courage to live without apology

Beautifully narrated.

Enjoyable insights on the life & times that shaped Coco Chanel’s drive. For which the world is fortunate. And continues to be in the 21st century.

Be true to yourself. If you don’t like your origins, alter them (in her case many times), don’t be a soapbox, publicly complaining of every single detail (opposite of 21st century social media platforms), it’s attention seeking & vulgar, opposite of elegance.

Chanel - timeless, elusive. Yet complicated. Who created simply what felt right. A legacy.

Equally delightful as the author unveils history, her own quest to justify a need to own a pricey Chanel jacket!

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Great book & narration!

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook. It is written from a modern woman’s perspective and comes with a few tongue in cheek, humorous moments based on the authors experiences of seeking out to buy Chanel. The narration was superb & I will note down the narrators name so that I can always listen to books read by her.

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