Nazi skeletons in Coco’s closet

While most people suffered in German-occupied France, Chanel was looking out for number one. By Roger Lewis

CHANEL’S RIVIERA by Anne de Courcy 304pp, W&N, £20, ebook £9.99

Coco Chanel, according to Anne de Courcy, remains “the most famous dress designer ever”, whose graceful black-and-white creations were a world away from Edwardian flowers and feathers. “To my

mind,” said the seamstress, “simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.” It was Chanel’s idea to introduce shoulder pads to emphasise a slender waist. She also invented a classic perfume, Chanel No 5, which made her fortune. “Spray it on wherever you expect to be kissed,” ran the instruction on the box – did anybody dare?

Though Chanel retained a suite at the Ritz in Paris, her true home was on the Riviera, where in 1929 she built a white marble villa with vaulted ceilings and cloistered colonnades. We are told much about the lick of luxury on the Mediterranean coast, the “hedonistic lifestyle that then seemed never-ending”. Bendor Westminster’s yacht, for example, had a crew of 40 – and Chanel had an affair with the Duke for 10 years, even decorating his castle in the Highlands and “installing the first bidet in Scotland… I did everything he wanted, but fishing for salmon is not life.”

Life, instead, was “luxurious indolence spiced with gambling and parties”. Elsie Mendl, one of the first women to receive a facelift, entered parties by way of a cartwheel, surely imperilling her sutures. People called Fruity and Baba went in for pet leopards. Aldous Huxley was on the scene (“Here all is exquisitely lovely… We bathe and bask”), as was Jean Cocteau (“I live in a brothel for American sailors”). Cyril Connolly, an enemy of his own promise, used sardines as bookmarks. As for Oswald Mosley, on the Riviera each summer, “philandering was as natural as breathing.”

Somerset Maugham, “a pansy with a stammer”, lived in a mansion with 13 servants, where his existence was a round of “scenery, books, gramophones, pretty people.” But the star residents in the South of France were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Their chateau was done out in Buckingham Palace colours of red, gold and Garter flags, and the Duke fully expected guests to bow and curtsy before Wallis. The exiled ex-monarch was attended by