Coco Chanel Illustrated Biography Chronicles Designer's Epic Trajectory

Coco Chanel is the subject of a new illustrated biography.

Titled 'Library of Luminaries: Coco Chanel: An Illustrated Biography', the tome explores the life of the French fashion icon from her impoverished childhood in an orphanage, to her dreams of becoming a singer and later a world-class fashion designer. Featuring handwritten text by London-based journalist, author, and editor Zena Alkayat and sweet illustrations by London-based freelance illustrator Nina Cosford, the book is a visual insight brimming with excerpts from Chanel's own letters and diaries

Alkayat researched and read a number of books including Lisa Chaney's 'Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life' and Justine Picardie's 'Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life.' The book sheds new light and explores some of the darker elements of Coco's life - her kind of foray with drugs and lesbianism, and her tumultuous love affairs with Europe's elite - the Duke of Westminster (better known as 'Bendor'), Pablo Picasso, composer Igor Stravinsky, exiled Russian Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, poet Pierre Reverdy and others.

Check out a few illustrations from the book below and sound off on twitter @fmd1_com using the hashtag #lovefmd.

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