Russian Friends of Chanel. Love, Passion, and Jealousy That Changed Fashion and Art of the 20th Century

How did the Parisian milliner become the Great Mademoiselle? Few people know that her success is owed not only to her own talent and innovation, and not even to her wealthy and noble lovers. Chanel entered the elite circle of Paris primarily thanks to the eminent Russian émigrés introduced to her by her close friend Misiya Sert. The novel "Russian Friends of Chanel" is based on documentary evidence, particularly on the notes of Coco Chanel's friend Paul Morand, who never received permission to publish them during her lifetime. In it, the author — writer and art critic Elena Celestin — vividly conveys the details of Chanel's acquaintance, friendship, and collaboration with Sergey Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, Leonid Miasin, Serge Lifar, Grand Duke Dmitry Romanov, and Princess Maria Pavlovna, as well as Picasso and his Russian wife Olga Khokhlova. The novel immerses the reader in the atmosphere of Paris in the 1920s, a period of the emergence of new art, inspired creativity, but at the same time uprootedness, jealousy, and lack of money — when "at Diaghilev's court" intense work and passions were boiling, including the involvement of Gabrielle Chanel.

Vivid dialogues and rare archival photos of the key figures accurately illustrate the characters of the heroes, their images, and the life of the Russian intelligentsia in emigration, telling for the first time the story of Coco Chanel's emergence in the brilliant circle of geniuses and legends.