Un Bijou for You I read this book the way I read Ms. Karbo's book on Katharine Hepburn: greedily, with an eye to what was in it for me. I plundered every chapter heading: On Style, On Self-Invention, On Fearlessness... does this fit me? Could I/should I adopt this for my own? With some, like On Embracing the Moment, I thought, Oh sure, I've already got that; with others, like On Living Life on Your Own Terms, I was stopped short, and I thought Yeah! I've gotta cultivate that! The other compelling thing about this book is that once you get past self-interest, you discover that Coco Chanel was an amazing woman. She invented modern fashion, and to do so had to rise above poverty and an actual orphanage. This was great material to draw on and reshape, which she did: Ms. Karbo says Chanel "lied about or embellished everything in her childhood...she had no respect for anything she didn't create, and that included her own history." Her trajectory included being a shopgirl, seamstress, cafe singer, and kept woman before she got to couturiere extraordinaire, and she owed nothing to anyone but herself. She was self-made and a revolutionary.
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