Coco Chanel

"Different Like Coco" Elizabeth Matthews Coco Chanel was born poor and skinny in France. Her family lives in a one bedroom home. She loves to be fashionable. Her mother dies when Coco is 12. She is sent to an orphanage. When Coco is in the orphanage, she makes a lot of doll clothes. When Coco is 21, she falls in love with a man named Arthur. He gives her a little shop in Paris. Read this book to find out how Coco Chanel becomes famous. Reviewed by Diana, 12 R.D. White Elementary Glendale "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" Carolyn Keene This book is about a girl named Nancy Drew.

Unlike any other figure in fashion history, Coco Chanel continues to hold a fascination decades after her death. An orphan who scaled the heights of the French haute couture, she introduced women to jersey sportswear and created the little black dress. She was also a German spy during World War II, according to Hal Vaughan's new book, "Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War. " To make his case, Vaughan, a U.S. journalist and historian, cites newly declassified documents and French, American, German and English archives.

During World War II, trend-setting French designer Coco Chanel, who extolled the virtues of simplicity -- albeit very expensive simplicity -- had a love affair with a German officer. She was once arrested on war crime charges but was set free through the intervention of the British royal family. But don't look for that controversial chapter of her life in the new French film "Coco Before Chanel," which opens Friday. The lavish two-hour biopic concentrates on her life before she became famous.

When Karl Lagerfeld arrived at Chanel in 1983, the label had degenerated into a glorified fragrance business. But during his tenure, he's turned Chanel into a global force and ushered in a new era in fashion. This "Lazarus movement" has inspired dozens of others to try reviving old-fashioned labels with new designers. Here are a few of them, along with what the labels were known for when they were founded, and what they are known for today. Alexander McQueen Founded in 1992.

It's a period romance between two well-known figures. Now take that idea, crumple it up and throw it away. " Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky" ignores its genre's expectations — fitting for two such potent, avant-garde personages. All sentimentality and politeness toward these revered subjects is tossed aside. Under Jan Kounen's direction, they are living, breathing people with undeniable flaws. Their affair is passionate but illicit, conducted as the composer and his family live under the stylish parasol of the couture designer's charity.

The history of the house of Chanel began during World War I, when Gabrielle Chanel kept her shop open in the north of France to outfit the influx of wealthy dispossessed as the front moved closer to Paris. As Edmonde Charles-Roux writes in his seminal Chanel biography, "What a curious fate that a Frenchwoman should owe the Germans the opportunity to improve her business and make herself known." She owes another German too -- Karl Lagerfeld.

Coco Chanel is known for saying "a woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future" and "fashion passes, style remains." But did she? Bons mots have been attributed to her because they seemed like the kind of thing the witty, sharp-tongued fashion icon might say. As Karen Karbo writes with dazzled admiration in "The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons From the World's Most Elegant Woman" (skirt!: 226 pp., $19.95), a certain un-pindownable-ness around Chanel (1883-1971) is pretty standard: "She was a master of misinformation, which is a nice way of saying she compulsively lied about her past, and then lied about having lied, and then disavowed the lie about the lie."

IF SHIRLEY MACLAINE and Coco Chanel fought over a parking spot, pearls would roll. "She was tough and she never backed down," says the Academy Award-winning actress, who's known for her own flammable personality and eccentric philosophy. The Parisian style icon died in 1971 at age 87. MacLaine, 74, plays her to the hilt in the Lifetime movie "Coco Chanel," airing Saturday. Recently, MacLaine -- who's sharper than a great horned owl -- chatted about the designer, the role and senior style: What did you find most fascinating about Coco Chanel?

There may come a time when "Lifetime movie" as a shorthand for sentimental, feisty-gal-sobfest is stricken from the lexicon. But that day is not today. Instead, today we consider "Coco Chanel," an original movie event premiering tonight that has such high production value and so little artistic value that a viewer may find herself at times whimpering in disbelief. Three seemingly endless hours long, "Coco Chanel" still manages to omit the most celebrated decades (and a scandalous affair with a German officer during World War II)

"Chanel Solitaire" is the video to see if you want the spicy details of the private life of Coco Chanel, the early 20th-Century fashion designer who captured the world's wish for thrillingly loose, unfrilled, functional fashion. The film--based on the novel by Claude Delay, so there's some fiction and some fact--stars the lovely Marie-France Pisier as the adult Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, who, when we first meet her, is an abandoned little French girl austerely taken to a Catholic orphanage.

It's a period romance between two well-known figures. Now take that idea, crumple it up and throw it away. " Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky" ignores its genre's expectations — fitting for two such potent, avant-garde personages. All sentimentality and politeness toward these revered subjects is tossed aside. Under Jan Kounen's direction, they are living, breathing people with undeniable flaws. Their affair is passionate but illicit, conducted as the composer and his family live under the stylish parasol of the couture designer's charity.

Law Abiding Citizen Overture/Anchor Bay, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98 When a thief and murderer gets a light sentence because of police bungling, the victim's husband and father (played by Gerard Butler) takes the law into his own hands and then proceeds to exact revenge against the whole criminal justice system, including a prosecutor played by Jamie Foxx. As written by Kurt Wimmer and directed by F. Gary Gray, the thriller is a jacked-up outrage machine, stirring up blind anger at government, outlaws and vigilantes.

"Different Like Coco" Elizabeth Matthews Coco Chanel was born poor and skinny in France. Her family lives in a one bedroom home. She loves to be fashionable. Her mother dies when Coco is 12. She is sent to an orphanage. When Coco is in the orphanage, she makes a lot of doll clothes. When Coco is 21, she falls in love with a man named Arthur. He gives her a little shop in Paris. Read this book to find out how Coco Chanel becomes famous. Reviewed by Diana, 12 R.D. White Elementary Glendale "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" Carolyn Keene This book is about a girl named Nancy Drew.

For someone who was as celebrated internationally as France's Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the woman who inspired dozens of biographies by changing the shape of 20th century fashion, not that much is known for sure about her formative years. "Chanel lied all the time. She used to say, 'I invented my life because I didn't like my life,' " Anne Fontaine has said, with Audrey Tautou adding, "Chanel always disguised the reality. It takes some cunning to know who Chanel really was." Though Chanel's reticence may sound like a barrier to filmmakers, it stimulated co-writer and director Fontaine and star Tautou, who've combined to turn "Coco Before Chanel" into a superior filmed biography that brings intelligence, restraint and style to what could have been a more standard treatment.

During World War II, trend-setting French designer Coco Chanel, who extolled the virtues of simplicity -- albeit very expensive simplicity -- had a love affair with a German officer. She was once arrested on war crime charges but was set free through the intervention of the British royal family. But don't look for that controversial chapter of her life in the new French film "Coco Before Chanel," which opens Friday. The lavish two-hour biopic concentrates on her life before she became famous.

L.A. is never short on gala movie events and last week proved no different, with virtually back-to-back fashion-centric film screenings that attracted glamorous crowds of socialites, celebrities and style setters. R.J. Cutler's documentary "The September Issue" was the center of attention Tuesday night at LACMA. The director spoke to a crowd including actresses Ginnifer Goodwin and Perrey Reeves, singer Kelly Rowland and boutique owner Cameron Silver, urging them to use Twitter or Facebook to spread their (positive)

Chanel No. 5, the only thing Marilyn Monroe wore to bed, is 75 years old this month. Formulated exactly as it is today and packaged in virtually the same bottle and box, the perfume was introduced by the revolutionary designer Coco Chanel to special clients in 1921. Which would make it 76, no? "Last year we launched [the fragrance] Allure," explains Laurie Palma, vice president of fragrance marketing. And any hoopla surrounding No. 5 might have been a distraction.

When Karl Lagerfeld arrived at Chanel in 1983, the label had degenerated into a glorified fragrance business. But during his tenure, he's turned Chanel into a global force and ushered in a new era in fashion. This "Lazarus movement" has inspired dozens of others to try reviving old-fashioned labels with new designers. Here are a few of them, along with what the labels were known for when they were founded, and what they are known for today. Alexander McQueen Founded in 1992.

Coco Chanel is known for saying "a woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future" and "fashion passes, style remains." But did she? Bons mots have been attributed to her because they seemed like the kind of thing the witty, sharp-tongued fashion icon might say. As Karen Karbo writes with dazzled admiration in "The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons From the World's Most Elegant Woman" (skirt!: 226 pp., $19.95), a certain un-pindownable-ness around Chanel (1883-1971) is pretty standard: "She was a master of misinformation, which is a nice way of saying she compulsively lied about her past, and then lied about having lied, and then disavowed the lie about the lie."

The march of fashion films continues with "Coco Before Chanel," opening Sept. 25. The biopic, directed by Anne Fontaine, stars Audrey Tautou as the legendary designer who was born poor, orphaned at a young age, grew up in a convent, and slept with a slew of important men throughout her life -- a roster that included the aristocratic horseman Ã?tienne Balsan, the Grand Duke Dmitri of Russia and composer Igor Stravinsky. With each one, she advanced her station in life and her style, taking their pajamas, hats and tweed riding jackets and making them a uniform for the newly liberated woman.