"Lovely and quietly intelligent, French chambermaid Hélène ... comes upon a couple ... engaged in an intensely sensual chess match and discovers she has a knack for the game. This obsession, much to the chagrin of her husband and teenage daughter, leads her to seek the clandestine tutelage of a reclusive American doctor ... a liaison that radically transforms both of their lackluster lives"--Container.

Years after being abandoned at an orphanage by her father, Gabrielle Chanel finds a job in a tailor shop where she meets, and soon begins an affair with French millionaire Etienne Balsan. Through Baron Balsan she is introduced into French society and given the opportunity to design her own style of hats. Though her career takes off, her personal life becomes more complicated when she falls in love with Balsan's former best friend Arthur Capel.