Coco Chanel, the freedom-loving woman who defied the tyrants of her day sheds new light on a famous, controverted personality, elusive and solitary who, in wartime, conscionably withstood the onslaughts against her freedom of thought, flouted all curtailment of her autonomy, and stubbornly upheld her sovereign uniqueness.

Gabrielle Palasse-Labrunie, Coco Chanel’s great-niece, with the author, Isée St. John Knowles.