Did Coco Chanel help the Nazis in WWII?

Three new books are out about Coco Chanel’s involved with the Nazi secret intelligence service in WW II.

Fashion has a peculiar affection for dramatic lives, so it’s no surprise there are three Chanel biographies: “An Intimate Life” by Lisa Chaney (Viking); “Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War” by Hal Vaughan (Knopf); and “Intimate Chanel,” co-written by her grand niece, Gabrielle Palasse-Labrunie (Rizzoli). These join the half-dozen Chanel biographies already in print, including Justine Picardie’s work, which was published this spring. The Chaney and Vaughan books provide documentation of her long affair with Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a German agent during the war, with Mr. Vaughan, who has previously written about war-time spies, suggesting the couturiere was a Nazi intelligence operative. His book is rather efficiently told; you don’t get a complete portrait of this complex woman or the times. The Chaney book purports to have new information about Chanel’s drug use and bisexuality. I had to laugh when I read Bettina Ballard’s remark at a Fashion Group meeting in New York, following Chanel’s controversial comeback in 1954. Dressed in a new Chanel suit, Ms. Ballard, an editor in Paris for American Vogue, said: “Mark my words. This is the beginning of a new thing.” That’s all the fashion people have to hear to forget the rest.