In preparation for making my “French Couture” jacket, I decided to reread my books about Coco

Chanel, and I bought a few new ones as well.  One that I’d been meaning to read was Sleeping With
the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War.
If you have read any of the hundreds of books about Chanel, then you know that she closed her
couture house before the Nazi takeover of France, and that during World War II she lived in the Ritz
Hotel and took a Nazi lover.  But for the most part the years between 1939 and 1954, when Chanel
reopened her house, are just sort of skipped over in writings about her.

This book by Hal Vaughan attempts to fill in the blanks.  Vaughan spent years studying documents in
England, France, Germany, Spain and Russia.  What emerged from his research is a pretty sorry tale.

Though the book is primarily concerned with the war years, Vaughan starts with Chanel’s birth in
1883, and follows her rise to fame.   He takes a close look at the influences of her life in an attempt to
explain (but not justify) the actions she took during WWII.

Chanel was born to poor peasant parents.  When she was twelve her mother died and her father took
her and her sisters to a convent to be reared by nuns.   According to Vaughan this is where Chanel
first encountered anti-Semitism, as she was taught that it was the Jews who had killed Christ.   These
beliefs were strengthened through several of her relationships, including those with her lovers the
Duke of Westminster and artist Paul Iribe.