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THE SORDID TRUTH ABOUT COCO CHANEL

3 August 2011


   Coco Chanel, the 20th Century’s most famous fashion designer, was a symbol of elegance and good taste, but she was also a drug-taking bi-sexual who had a torrid love affair with a Nazi spy, according to a new book.   Lisa Chaney’s forthcoming biography, Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life, lays bare hard evidence of the fashion maven’s use of opiates, as well as new insights into her private life and multiple love affairs.

Proof, indeed: Coco Chanel An Intimate Life claims to prove that Ms Chanel relied on opiates, enjoyed lesbian dalliances and had a Nazi spy lover

   Women’s Wear Daily says the book proves that one of her many lovers, Hans Günther von Dincklage, spied for the Nazis throughout the Second World War.

   The publicist for publishers Viking, says: “Whether Chanel was aware of this is unknown, but after that war she lived in neutral Switzerland for a while, to avoid any proceedings against her.”
  In the book, due for release in November, Ms Chaney uses newly discovered letters as well as documents from the Swiss Federal Archives to quell any doubt as to the truth of some of the less palatable aspects of Ms Chanel’s rags-to-riches story and colourful lifestyle.
  Viking says: “Her numerous liaisons, whose poignant and tragic details have eluded all previous biographers, were the very stuff of legend.
  “Witty and mesmerizing, she became muse, patron, or mistress to the century’s most celebrated artists, including Picasso, Dalí, and Stravinsky.”

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