Justine Picardie – författare

Miss Dior is a wartime story of freedom and fascism, beauty and betrayal and 'a gripping story' (Antonia Fraser).*The New Look, a new Apple TV drama series starring Maisie Williams as Catherine Dior - in a role inspired by Justine Picardie's Miss Dior - is out now*'Exceptional . . . Miss Dior is so much more than a biography. It's about how necessity can drive people to either terrible deeds or acts of great courage, and how beauty can grow from the worst kinds of horror.'DAILY TELEGRAPHMiss Dior explores the relationship between the visionary designer Christian Dior and his beloved younger sister Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie's journey takes her to wartime Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance and the battle against the Nazis, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück.Tracing the wartime paths of the Dior siblings leads Picardie deep into other hidden histories, and different forms of resistance and sisterhood. She discovers what it means to believe in beauty and hope, despite our knowledge of darkness and despair, and reveals the timeless solace of the natural world in the aftermath of devastation and destruction. *A beautiful, full colour package featuring over 200 archival images.*'Extraordinary . . . Picardie uses her investigative reporting skills . . . the result is Netflix-worthy and the pace page-turning . . . Catherine's story shines - the quiet Dior who preferred flowers to fashion, the unsung heroine who survived the abuse of the Third Reich to help liberate France.'SUNDAY TIMES

'A romp through British royal fashion and image-making between the Edwardian era and 1960 . . . Compelling and well-researched' New York Times'Magnificent . . . A book that is tart, racy and compulsively readable. The pictures, as you might expect, are gorgeous' Kathryn Hughes, The TimesPublished ahead of the centenary of the Queen's birth, this beautifully illustrated book uncovers the hidden history of the Crown and how it survived a tumultuous era and two world wars.**Features over 100 sumptuous images**From the birth of the house of Windsor in 1917, its leading women - Queen Mary, the Queen Mother, the Duchess of Windsor and Queen Elizabeth II - faced the perils of abdication and assassination, revolution and the rise of fascism, the threat of invasion and all-out war. Their sartorial decisions, alongside those of their royal husbands, projected power and perpetuity, diplomacy and defiance.In this cinematic story of espionage and exquisite couture, Justine Picardie reveals the undercover lives of the creators behind the façade - including Hardy Amies, Cecil Beaton, Norman Hartnell and Edward Molyneux - and traces the ways in which visual iconography safeguarded the monarchy, even when their reign seemed to be hanging by a thread.Drawing on original research in the Royal Archives and her own experiences at Balmoral, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, Picardie explores the family feuds and international conflicts that challenged the Crown, and how royal fashion has long been wielded as a weapon.

Justine Picardie spent years puzzling over the truth about Coco Chanel, peeling away the accretions of romance and lies. Since its publication in 2010, hers has become the definitive Chanel biography. With a new foreword and previously unseen images, this new edition delves even deeper into the life and legacy of this eternally alluring woman.Coco Chanel was an extraordinary inventor – she conjured up the little black dress, bobbed hair, trousers for women, contemporary chic, best-selling perfumes, and the most successful fashion brand of all time – but she also invented herself, fashioning the myth of her own life with the same dexterity as her couture.While Chanel was supreme innovator and vendor of all things elegant and beautiful, what lies beneath her own glossy myth is far darker. Throwing new light on her passionate and turbulent relationships, this beautifully constructed portrait gives a fresh and penetrating look at how Coco Chanel made herself into her own most powerful creation.Justine Picardie brings the mysterious Gabrielle Chanel out of hiding, to celebrate her great achievements. She examines Chanel's enduring afterlife, as well as her remarkable life, uncovering the consequences of what she covered up, unpicking the seams between truth and legend, yet keeping intact the real fabric of her past.

SLEEK. CHIC. NOTORIOUSLY GUARDED. WELCOME TO THE SECRET WORLD OF COCO CHANEL.Justine Picardie’s definitive biography explores the dark mysteries hidden beneath the shimmering surface of a fabled fashion icon. Unveiling remarkable details about Coco Chanel’s traumatic childhood and her flight into unconventional adulthood, this beautifully constructed portrait reveals her passionate and painful past, her turbulent loves and losses, her quest for fame and fortune, and how she transformed herself into her own most powerful creation.Feared and revered by her contemporaries, Chanel died in 1971, but her legacy lives on as an enduring global brand. Drawing on interviews with her last surviving friends and relatives, and unprecedented archival research, Justine Picardie brings Chanel out of hiding, unpicking the seams between reality and myth, and telling a timeless story that uncovers the true art and heart of fashion.This special new edition has been extensively revised and updated, and offers a uniquely authoritative account of the greatest designer in the world. Adding fresh insights and discoveries, it comes complete with a compelling array of previously unseen images from the Chanel archives.

In this absolutely unique treasure trove of fashion, family memoir and literature, Justine Picardie tells a sequence of stories that reveal the fabric of the past, and how a family has fashioned itself through the clothes that they have worn: from her mother’s black wedding dress to her first party frock, a translucent winged fairy outfit that provided an early lesson in what we uncover, and what we cover up. She also tells of her encounters with fashion designers – Karl Lagerfeld and Donatella Versace, among others; conversations with supermodels, and her search for Charlotte Bronte's ring.My Mother's Wedding Dress unravels why we care so much about clothes - the white satin and feathers and little black dresses with which we armour ourselves; the material of our lives. Above all, it is Justine Picardie's inimitable voice and thought-provoking quest for answers to her own past that make this book so special.‘An enticing combination of autobiography, biography, memoir, discourse, interviews, fashion notes, and dreams… a sparky and original book’Daily Mail ‘Highly stylish and unusual, a selection of swatches that works as a whole’ Sunday Telegraph

It is 1957. As Daphne du Maurier wanders alone through her remote mansion on the Cornish coast, she is haunted by thoughts of her failing marriage and the legendary heroine of her most famous novel, "Rebecca", who now seems close at hand. Seeking distraction, she becomes fascinated by Branwell, the reprobate brother of the Bronte sisters, and begins a correspondence with the enigmatic scholar Alex Symington in which truth and fiction combine. Meanwhile, in present day London, a lonely young woman struggles with her thesis on du Maurier and the Brontes and finds herself retreating from her distant husband into a fifty-year-old literary mystery.

Truth or Dare is an anthology of memoirs from eleven internationally recognized authors who have uncovered what is closest to their hearts: from childhood secrets and tales of first love to the story of a father’s suicide.With pieces by Andrea Ashworth, Rachel Cusk, Sophie Dahl, Sabine Durrant, William Fiennes, Esther Freud, Zoë Heller, Nick Hornby, Julie Myerson, Jon Ronson and Alice Sebold, this volume contains all the emotional range and quirky individuality for which these writers are acclaimed.

Kate Linden is a 35 year old single mother, who dreams of a rosy future with a dream man - one who will love both her and her son Sam. But while she's waiting for the arrival of that unknown saviour, she finds herself entangled with her handsome, domineering cousin Julian, the son of her dead mother's twin sister.As she returns to Julian's childhood home in Norfolk for a family weekend, Kate is drawn back into the mysteries that haunt her. What was the truth of the relationship between her mother and Julian's father? Who was responsible for her mother's death in a car crash? How will the patterns of that dark past repeat themselves, or can she escape them?Justine Picardie writes with a clear, beautiful voice about family intrigues and intricacies. Wish I May is a story about the shadows cast by the past, but also of a sustaining hope for the future, and the magical transformations of love.

With an introduction by Andrew O'HaganWhen I think about her now, which is most of the time, it's like rewinding a silent film in my head: I see the crucial scenes in our lives together. But what I can't hear is her voice in my head, and that silence is driving me crazy.After her sister Ruth's death from breast cancer in September 1997, Justine Picardie was desperate to speak to her again, to hear her voice, to find something - anything - that might fill the space she had left behind. Over the course of the next year, Justine's search for Ruth lead her into the underworld of spiritualism, through a series of encounters with mediums and psychics who believe that we can communicate with those we have lost.If the Spirit Moves You is Justine's remarkable story about her search for the afterlife in an age of reason, scepticism and science. Powerfully moving, both heart-breaking and funny, it is an extraordinary classic about the exhausting journey of grief and the enduring power of love.