Yesterday I randomly came across a photo of Coco Chanel talking to Jean Cocteau, and it reminded of this perfect opening paragraph about the fashion designer that Judith Warner wrote for a 2011 New York Times Book Review piece:

“Gabrielle Chanel — better known as Coco — was a wretched human being. Anti-Semitic, homophobic, social climbing, opportunistic, ridiculously snobbish and given to sins of phrase-making like ‘If blonde, use blue perfume,’ she was addicted to morphine and actively collaborated with the Germans during the Nazi occupation of Paris. And yet, her clean, modern, kinetic designs, which brought a high-society look to low-regarded fabrics, revolutionized women’s fashion, and to this day have kept her name synonymous with the most glorious notions of French taste and élan.”