Our Hundred Year Legacy

Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style—the iconic little black dress—and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII—as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.

We’re delighted to feature Pamela on the site today! 

When women at last won the right to vote in 1920 a spark was lit—they wanted more! Marching forward our grandmothers, great grandmothers, and great-great grandmothers blazed the way for women today. Their struggles for independence through the years laid the groundwork for the victories we’ve achieved one hundred years later–the ability to freely choose both careers and families, either or both, without facing poverty if we fail. And the ability to succeed. 

Back then in the roaring twenties, despite the victory of the vote and the new short skirts, bobbed hair, the shining red lipstick and the Charleston, with saxaphones wailing through glittering crowds, the odds were still against a lone woman wanting to step out into the world on her own. One reason for that was it was still high risk; unlike today, disapproval was still high. No one lifted them up or caught them if they failed.

The stark fact is, unlike today, no support networks existed in the early 1920’s for women in the workplace, or those just longing to follow a dream. No groups of friends waiting to share the risk. No web of legislated rights, no unemployment security. Women were still banned from serving on juries. And what property they owned was controlled by husbands or fathers. Failure often left behind a desperate woman, forced to return with her head hanging to an infuriated husband, father, brother. 

Our—womens’—struggles for independence, success, and financial security is a subject close to my heart, and central to most of my novels. In my case writing came after a career in law, because in the late 1960s I found myself the sole support of my baby boy. Thanks to the strong women of the 1920’s, the fire still burned, our pathways were prepared and well lit. I was able to work my way through college and law school, to assure my child would never go without. And after twenty-five years of practicing law, I began a new career, writing. 

My own Grandmother was one of those strong women. She fought that fight throughout the decade of the jazz age. The Moon in the Mango Tree is based on the choice she felt forced to make between love and her family, and a career. My grandfather, a medical missionary in Philadelphia at the time, accepted a post in the jungles of northern Siam (now Thailand). My grandmother, training for grand opera and longing for a singing career, rebelled against the move. She was told by her mother to “grow up!” A woman’s duty was to follow her husband and support his career. She became a reluctant missionary wife. But her rebellion rose a few years later.

Coco Chanel was one of those women too, further down the flaming path. Her survival tactics in the 1940’s during WWII were explosive. My latest release, The Queen of Paris, a novel on Coco Chanel, exposes her hidden story during the four years Germany occupied France, while Coco resided alongside the Nazi High Command in the Paris Hotel Ritz. That war brought a sharp turning in the iconic couturier’s life. Because Coco had secrets to hide. 

I first decided to write this novel after viewing photographs of recently unearthed WWII military files showing that Chanel was recruited by German Military Intelligence during those years. And she was not merely a collaborator—Coco was a spy. The files, published in a recent non-fiction book titled Sleeping with the Enemy by Hal Vaughn (Random House), reveal her code name, “Westminster”, and her assigned agent number. Chanel also carried out secret missions for the Nazi regime.  

But one question plagued me: “Why?” Why would one of the wealthiest, most successful women in the world agree to spy for the Nazis occupying her country? There was a story here on Coco Chanel that had not yet been written, I realized.

After years of research for The Queen of Paris, I believe I’ve found the answer. Chanel was a complicated woman. Each time I thought I had completed the basic work, new twists and more secrets were uncovered. For instance, because of the war she was also battling her Jewish partner in the company producing her signature perfume, No. 5. After he fled France with the secret No. 5 formula just ahead of the Nazis’, Coco, infuriated, claimed under German laws prohibiting Jews from owning property or businesses that, as an Aryan she was entitled to all rights to No. 5 and the company, including her partner’s share. At the same time, Reich Marshal Hermann Goring’s decadent greed was another threat as he pressed for Germany’s rights to No. 5. 

Another electrifying reason for Coco’s strange decisions exists as well—but that one’s a spoiler! 

In writing this novel, I also used brief flashbacks to pertinent events in Chanel’s early life which seem to relate to her actions during the war, perhaps explaining them. I think of this as writing in the shadows of history. I love what Foreward Reviews had to say—”The Queen of Paris reveals another room in the House of Chanel: beyond the timeless elegance, simplicity, and jasmine-scented perfume was a desperate woman, trapped by a maze of circumstances and her own troubled mind.”

As to Coco, love her or hate her in the end—I leave the reader to judge in the book. But she was one of the many shimmering ghosts of our past, one of many keepers of the flame pushing our battles for independence forward year by year. Yes, often life is still unfair. But more often, with hard work today we can succeed. 

Just think of it! Our successes today are our grandmothers and great-grandmother’s gifts. From 1920 to 2020–we should celebrate these 100 years. Because this is their legacy to us. 

For more information, please visit me anytime at the places below!

Website: https://www.pamelaewen.com/

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THE QUEEN OF PARIS

Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style—the iconic little black dress—and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII—as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.

Coco Chanel could be cheerful, lighthearted, and generous; she also could be ruthless, manipulative, even cruel. Against the winds of war, with the Wehrmacht marching down the Champs-Élysées, Chanel finds herself residing alongside the Reich’s High Command in the Hotel Ritz. Surrounded by the enemy, Chanel wages a private war of her own to wrestle full control of her perfume company from the hands of her Jewish business partner, Pierre Wertheimer. With anti-Semitism on the rise, he has escaped to the United States with the confidential formula for Chanel No. 5. Distrustful of his intentions to set up production on the outskirts of New York City, Chanel fights to seize ownership. The House of Chanel shall not fall.

While Chanel struggles to keep her livelihood intact, Paris sinks under the iron fist of German rule. Chanel—a woman made of sparkling granite—will do anything to survive. She will even agree to collaborate with the Nazis in order to protect her darkest secrets. When she is covertly recruited by Germany to spy for the Reich, she becomes Agent F-7124, code name: Westminster. But why? And to what lengths will she go to keep her stormy past from haunting her future?

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing