Coco Chanel: Nazi agent?

Coco Chanel, the inventor of the
Little Black Dress

It appears as though fashion icon Coco Chanel may well have been a Nazi agent during the occupation of France.  She clearly benefited from Nazi policies (she was able to take over the entire Chanel Perfume line from a Jewish family who owned the rights to manufacture her fragrances), but now it seems that she may have been an active asset of the Nazi intelligence apparatus.

Like many luminaries, including the singers Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier, the writer Jean Cocteau and the late president Francois Mitterrand, Chanel remained in her native country following its occupation by German forces in the summer of 1940.

And since the war's end, rumours have abounded about the real nature of her association with the Nazis.

Now according to Hal Vaughan, author of the new book, Sleeping with the Enemy, Chanel is revealed as having actually worked for German military intelligence during the war.

Being a Nazi agent was "part of her daily life" in Paris during the occupation, he says.

"Chanel was a consummate opportunist. The Nazis were in power, and Chanel gravitated to power. It was the story of her life."

I'm so disillusioned...