Wendy Guerra

A novel that explores the fascinating figure of Coco Chanel with all her lights and shadows.

When her parents die, Simone takes charge of the family tailoring business in a small provincial French town and soon makes a name for herself thanks to her talent with the needle and thread and the ground-breaking originality of her designs. One day, a small, energetic woman who runs a hat shop in Paris walks into her humble seamstress’s workshop. Her name is Gabrielle Chanel and she is full of innovative ideas. She asks Simone to become her business partner.

The doors to the European high society of the early 20th century are opened to Simone and she rubs shoulders with the aristocrats, artists and famous names of her time in the capital of the world. Gabrielle does not seem out of place among them – she moves like a fish in water among the rich and the bons vivants, but she is hiding a complicated past full of light and shadows. With their haute couture designs, Simone and Gabrielle together revolutionise fashion in France and around the world, liberating women through the way they dress. Their success, however, cannot save them from life’s heavy blows: two wars, failed love affairs, irreplaceable losses and a betrayal that will forever shape the destiny of the two women and the mark they will leave – visible or despicably erased – on the history of a turbulent century.

"The most literary and stylistically accomplished of her published works." —Leonardo Padura, El País

"Guerra’s prose is imbued with sensoriality: La costurera de Chanel smells of incense and lavender, echoes with Chopin’s waltzes and the Atlantic breeze, and its texture is as enveloping as fine tweed. In its pages, fashion is both a language and a trench, a form of resistance against imposed norms. Between luxury and war, ambition and memory, the novel reminds us that true elegance is not in the dresses but in the determination of those who dare to change the rules."—Carmen Gómez Moreno, El Generacional

"Guerra’s novel arrives at a time when there seems to be a growing interest in revisiting the great names of haute couture." —La Razón

“Lyrical and potent... Guerra’s captivating tale is an intriguing depiction of art amid corruption, and a reminder of the power in a singular voice.”—Publishers Weekly, on Revolution Sunday

“A powerful novel of love and loss, memory and possibility.” —The New York Times, on Everyone Leaves

“A beautifully written, absorbing tale of exile, love, and identity.”—Kirkus Reviews, on Everyone Leaves