CHANEL

This handsomely illustrated history of the work, rather than the life, of couturiere Gabrielle ``Coco'' Chanel (18831971) is more a commercial than a personal biography. It concludes, in fact, with a brief chapter called ``The House of Chanel Today,'' in which supermodels like Claudia Schiffer and Linda Evangelista are pictured voguing in current designs and in which current Chanel head, Karl Lagerfeld, receives thinly disguised accolades from the authors. In telling Chanel's story, de la Haye (assistant curator in the Textiles and Dress Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum) and Tobin (curator of Costume for the National Trust in England) offer a history of 20th-century high fashion, from the famed little black dress and Chanel's appropriation of clothing traditionally worn by men to the current efforts of Lagerfeld and Co. to institutionalize the once-revolutionary fashion ethos of Chanel.