Valerie Steele

Published: Dec. 14, 2019, 2:42 p.m.

This cultural historian regards Coco Chanel as a titan of fashion but notes, “Like Picasso or Wagner, she was really really brilliant and just an absolutely despicable human being.” Anti-Semite, union-buster, Nazi spy: when great artists are bad people. Plus music from Eléonore Weill and Ali Dineen.