The Last Collection opens with the receipt of a telegram in 1954 that calls Lily Sutter to return to the Paris she left on the very brink of war. The vast majority of Jeanne Mackin's novels is set on that brink though, in the two years Lily Sutter spends in Paris following the tragic death of her husband. It's Lily's brother, Charlie, who calls her aware from the gray English boarding school where she teaches art classes to posh daughters with significant health challenges...like Marie "Gogo" Schiaparelli, whose childhood bout with polio has marked her gait and her relationship with her famous, fashion-designer mother, Elsa.
It's Charlie, too, who introduces Lily to the aristocratic Madame Bouchard and the world of French fashion, dominated by Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli. In Paris, as she becomes a friend and confidante to the two arch-rivals, Lily also re-learns to paint, and to live.
Having previously read both Mademoiselle Chanel (fiction) and Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life (non-fiction), I was familiar with Chanel and her rivalry with Schiaparelli. Mackin imparts more color, and also more of Schiaparelli, who largely emerges as the central character. Although Lily is a young widow and Paris is on the brink of a war that will nearly destroy it, to Mackin's credit, The Last Collection is not overly heavy, and manages to feel even hopeful. Certainly, it's a book to be enjoyed by those who love Paris, and all things Parisian.
Four stars.
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