Coco and the Baron, who was called "Spatz," had a liaison of a decade duration and she seems to have chosen love over politics.
In 1944 when Paris was liberated the women who were known to have slept with Nazi/German soldiers during the time in which it was occupied were dragged through the streets, had their heads shaved to embarrass them, and worse. Chanel was brought to the FFI headquarters for questioning but was released quickly, according the author Vaughan, due to the intercession of Winston Churchill. She and Churchill had been friends for thirty years at that point, and he saved her from trial as a German collaborator. She was 61 to Dincklages' 48, and after the questioning she went to Switzerland, a neutral country, to meet up with him.
In 1946 the French Court of Justice issued a warrant to bring Chanel back to France for questioning, but not because of her Nazi spy lover. This time she was accused of collaboration with a French traitor to give information to Germany military intelligence. She denied all accusations and the author states that at that time the extent of her involvement was unknown, implying that if they had known she would not have been let to go.
Was the nickname CoCo based on the French word Cocotte, for Kept Woman? Well, she had been. Born in 1883 as one of six children living in peasant poverty, by 1895 when her mother died and then abandoned by her father, she was raised by nuns where she learned discipline and frugality. Her need to survive after leaving the nunnery lead her to singing in a cabaret to becoming,at 23, the Mistress of wealthy Etienne Balsan. For three years she lived with him without marriage, learned to ride horses and the ways of the wealthy. Following this relationship, CoCo spent eleven years with Arthur "Boy" Chapel beginning in 1908, so from approximately age 25 to age 36. Neither man could or would marry her. So no doubt CoCo had been a Kept Woman.
During the World War I era she lived in a Paris apartment. Boy married (but still kept CoCo as a lover). He was the love of her life but as a result of his death in 1920 in a traffic accident she learned by the bequests in his will that he also had an Italian countess as a Mistress. It is unstated in the book but clearly there was thus more to his choice of bride than class if he also kept an Italian countess!
CoCo had also made a best friend of Misia, Marie Sophie Olga Zenaide Godebska, who had come to London at 18 and had a series of trysts with older men. Misia inherited a large sum of money at age 20. These two bonded as unconventional artists and it is implied might have enjoyed a lesbian relationship or been two cougars out looking for men.
CoCo meanwhile had diversified. Despite all her hard work, talent, and enterprise in fashion it took hiring a perfumer to invent for her approval and her own promotion a perfume, Chanel No. 5 to become a truly wealthy woman in her own right. It was enough that in 1918 she paid 300,000 gold francs to buy her villa at Biarritz. By 1920 she had enough money to become a patron of the arts and to buy a house in Paris.
Her meeting with the Baron was likely at her Villa or nearby. He had German aristocracy and military officers in his heritage and was against Communism. He is said to have become a spy by 1919, the World War I era, long before World War II. Spatz "used men and seduced women without mercy" He was "urbane and well mannered", multilingual, had a warm personality but was not an Aryan playboy. He wore the diplomats cloak of immunity. No one was in physical danger around him. (chapter 2 page 32 of 112+)
Meanwhile, the author characterizes CoCo in the 1920's as always on the prowl for male conquests and lists them. One of them, poet Piere Rverdy, was one she loved and provided material assistance to so that he could go on writing. He and CoCo had a "deep friendship" of 40 years. She also had a liaison with Russian Grand Duke Dmitre Paulovich, a contender for the Russian throne, who, like other lovers, inspired her fashion designs, in his case her "Slavic Period." He helped her launch Chanel No. 5 perfume in 1921 when it was promoted as the luxury perfume, with its very complicated formulation that included chemicals not from natural floral sources. It was made by the Pierre Wertheimer Company in large enough batches to meet demand. The author contends that she was nonchalant or reckless to do business with them or acting while in depression over the end of an affair... I bring this all up because while the question of CoCo Chanel as a woman living for love and around lovers rather than an astute business woman is suggested by the author, I see that she may actually have enjoyed multiple and ongoing relationships - been poly-amorous. Was she aggressive and canny? Simply determined to infiltrate society, even though rejected as a potential wife due to her birth as a peasant? Bisexual or experimental? Was her upset at the Wertheimer's unreasonable but attributed to "ant-Semitism"? Her perfume was a worldly success but it was not until 20 years had gone by and the World War II era that she realized she'd been screwed by them and yes, once she got mad she would not stop saying so.
And now she was also supposed to be homophobic?
And a long time user of morphine? Doping herself up to party? While she had 300+ employees and a business to run - and save?
As previously stated, the condemnation of CoCo in this book made me question it as an unbalanced reportage determined to condemn her as a Nazi collaborator with the only excuse for her behavioir being her need for a man in her life. However, would Winston Churchill, the man said to have been instrumental in Britain's involvement in the War and salvation of it, really have stuck his neck out to save her just because they were friends? Is that something you would do for a friend if you knew they were going to be outed on the world stage for behavior acceptable at one time (at least among a minority) that is now not politically correct?
Many people in the 1930's and 1940's felt that Russian Communism was to be feared. The Russian Revolution had left Europe scared. Other countries did not want a revolution or hordes overrunning their country on the way out of Communism. In occupied countries during World War II, and probably every war that ever was, there were diverse opinions that went unspoken because people were just too afraid. Just like in a typical corporation.
This book has left me wondering about all the women who are liberal Democrats in love with stalwart Republican men who basically avoid political discussions and focus on happy domesticity and the home as a refuge from the world. It has also made me wonder if the long dead Chanel's company has been currently targeted by people who don't want Jewish women to buy the clothes or the perfume.
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