First and only Flair annual, following the demise of Cowles's sumptuous Flair magazine — signed by editor Fleur Cowles.
Very good plus.
Price: $300.00
"[T]he most outrageously beautiful, visually daring, and extravagantly inventive magazine ever conceived." (Collins)
Extravagantly art directed and luxuriously printed, Fleur Cowles's short-lived and long-lamented periodical FLAIR is still upheld by many as the paradigm and pinnacle of what a magazine ought to be: exquisite, extravagant, cultured, witty, and driven by the idiosyncratic vision and stylistic obsessions of a charismatic founder with ideas about art and no regard for finances or practicality. During its brief run, FLAIR magazine was viewed with suspicion, hostility, and contempt by a substantial number of competitors and advertisers who found its aesthetic, not to mention its editorial staff, to be unforgivably feminine when not shockingly homosexual: even the pages themselves were studded with intricate cut-outs, hidden folded surprises, imbued with the scent of roses. An advertising trade quarterly characterized the editors as "lilies seen in a black mirror," and "steered advertisers 'allergic to femininity and effemininity' elsewhere" (Collins). In short, the whole thing smacked of Gender, as modern people say, and in due course the magazine folded. Shortly thereafter, Cowles produced this Annual, with high hopes of reviving FLAIR as a yearly publishing production with even better production values and an even higher price, but it, too, was doomed, and the first Annual was also the last. An impractical and very beautiful book.
Read more: Amy Fine Collins, "A Flair for Living," Vanity Fair.
Cowles Magazines, Inc, (1952). 13'' x 9.75''. Original red and gilt cloth with rectangular cut-out to front board. Numerous tipped-in color plates, fold-outs, cut-outs, and other illustrations throughout. Red pictorial endpapers. 229, [1] pages. Signed by Cowles on presentation page. Moderate wear and rubbing to extremities.
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