Charles James
Subtitle: portrait of an unreasonable man : fame, fashion, art
By: Michèle Gerber Klein ; foreword by Harold Koda
Contributors: Koda, Harold, writer of foreword
Publisher: Rizzoli Ex Libris
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 254
ISBN-13: 9780847861453
Subjects: Biography; Fashion designers
Description: "Inspired by the discovery of long-overlooked interviews conducted just before his death, this is the first biography of the visionary fashion designer Charles James. Christian Dior described him as the inspiration for the "New Look." Salvador Dalí called his work "soft sculpture," and Virginia Woolf exclaimed, "He is a genius." As George Bernard Shaw tells us, only unreasonable men change the world. This portrait of the life and times of Charles James--winner of two Coty awards, and the subject of a 2014 Metropolitan Museum of Art show--draws on the glamour of Europe in the 1930s, and the dazzle of New York City from the '40s through the '70s as it travels with James from his birth to privilege in England in 1906 and follows his career through his complex and turbulent relationships with exceptional women such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Eleanor Lambert, ending with his penurious death in New York's fabled Chelsea Hotel. As engrossing as a novel, as dramatic as grand opera, James’s story will provoke, rivet, and inspire."--Inside dust jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-232) and index.
Table of contents: title: In the beginning: between Europe and America; title: Art and invention: Elsa Schiaparelli; title: Fairy tales for the future: Anne, Countess of Rosse; title: Setting up shop: Elizabeth Arden; title: Immortality: Millicent Rogers; title: Beyond fashion: Modess, Andy Warhol, and Dominique de Menil; title: Apotheosis: Austine Hearst; title: Nemesis: Eleanor Lambert; title: The last muse: Nancy James; title: After all.