Today's selection -- from Condé Nast by Susan Ronald. Coco Chanel and World War II:
"In 1923, Misia, the Russian-born wife of the painter Jose Maria Sert, ruled the heart of Parisian bohemian society. Misia was also the inseparable friend of Coco Chanel. She boosted Chanel's rise to the dizzy heights as czarina of the Paris fashion world, with her low-waisted, brief-skirted, and 'infinitely graceless chemise frock.' But Chanel's real genius began with the use of simple fabrics like jersey, felt berets, and straw hats, reminiscent of Chanel's childhood in the French countryside. So, when Chanel hit upon this nostalgic note, it caught on. Essentially Chanel was a milliner, and wearing a Chanel hat during wartime became a show of patriotism. Through her long affair with 'Bendor,' Hugh Grosvenor, duke of Westminster, she became accepted among the British upper crust just as she had with the Parisian beau monde who wintered on the Riviera. Chanel elbowed aside Poiret, just as he had given Jeanne Paquin the push. But when Chanel disembarked from Bendor's yacht, Flying Cloud, 'brown as a cabin boy,' she shattered the last of the Victorian taboos and introduced her longest-lasting fashion -- the suntan. .......MORE
"[Later, in World War II when Paris was threatened by the invasion of Germany,] when there was no immediate bombardment of Paris, ... 'Paul Reynaud, [the French] Treasury Minister, broadcasted a speech ... in which he asked all non-mobilized people and the wives of the mobilized to do the impossible and reopen their shops or trades. He said it was the duty of all who could work and had not gone into the army, to help bring back money to France.' ... Coco Chanel notoriously resisted the call to return to work by closing her entire business in response to the declaration of war. Why, when others like the Italian couturier Schiaparelli and the Spaniard Balenciaga announced midseason collections? That summer Edna [Woolman Chase] had seen Chanel at Solange d'Ayen's home. Edna thought Chanel looked nervous and depressed. Chanel admitted,'I'm afraid, madame, I'm afraid.' What Edna hadn't known was why Chanel seemed so afraid. Since 1938, Chanel, a notorious anti-Semite, had been the lover of the Nazi spy Baron Hans von Dincklage....
