“In a black dress, you notice the woman who is wearing it, rather than the dress itself,” Coco says to her customers who aren’t even sure that black is a colour. The girl who grew up in an orphanage became the most famous fashion designer of the twentieth century. With her simple, stylish designs, Coco Chanel (1883–1971) liberated women from their tight corsets. In Coco of het kleine zwarte jurkje (Coco or the Little Black Dress), Annemarie van Haeringen’s vivid, dramatic illustrations have all of the impact of Chanel’s powerful designs.

This book was published as part of a series of art picture books by Leopold and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. This successful series sets itself apart from other children’s books about art because of its fictional component, offering writers and illustrators the opportunity to com­bine their own skills with those of the artist they admire.