Transcript
Introduction
“She smiled and kept hold of my hand. I'm very pleased as you see, there was no big audience, but the people who did come really understand work done well. No one pays me compliments anymore simply to please me. It's my work that I'm congratulated on. And to me, that's the only thing that counts.”
So it's a quote from Coco Chanel when she was 71 years old. And I found it in the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Coco Chanel, Her Life, Her Secrets. So let's start at the very beginning, where the author is talking about how he came to know Coco Chanel. And he says, I first met Coco Chanel in 1958. She was 75 years old, a prodigy beautified and triumphant. She had imposed her style in the whole world. Because she has succeeded in everything in her life, I urge her to describe her victories into the tape recorder. She murmured into the microphone, “I don't even know whether I've been happy.” So I'm going to continue in the introduction. I just want to pause here, though. This is one of the strangest books that I've read so far for the podcast.