"The Fashionable Savages: An Anatomy Of The Creators And The Ladies Who Make Fashion Today" 1965 FAIRCHILD, John (SOLD)

FAIRCHILD, John

[200] pp.

Doubleday & Company, Inc.

1965

First Edition

9 1/2" x 6 1/2"

Jacket design and illustration by Kenneth Paul Block

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John Burr Fairchild was the publisher and editor in chief of Women's Wear Daily from 1960 to 1996 and the founding editor of W magazine in 1972. “Fashionable Savages,” is a conversational, opinionated novel that covers both the intricate details and big ideas of the fashion industry at the time. It stops first in Paris and then New York, saving the best for last—a lengthy discussion of the Best Dressed List and those who appear on it—and includes fascinating insights into Coco Chanel, Diana Vreeland, Babe Paley, Gloria Guinness, the Duchess of Windsor, Jacqueline Kennedy, and many others.

Fashion by its definition is always changing, but rarely as radically as it did in the late 1960s. This book perfectly captures the era just before the deluge, when Truman Capote's Swans and their aesthetic dominated the fashion magazines. Capote’s famed Black and White ball was still a year in the future. It, in retrospect, cleaved the decade in two, making an anachronism of this book long before it first went out of print. No matter this book is great fun in any era. Spiky and opinionated, Fairchild covers the seemingly trivial details without ever forgetting the big ideas. He stops first in Paris and then New York, saving the best for last—a lengthy discussion of the Best Dressed List and those who appear on it. Includes fascinating insights into Babe Paley, Gloria Guinness, C.Z. Guest, the Duchess of Windsor, Jacqueline Kennedy, Coco Chanel, Diana Vreeland, and others of their ilk.

“Years ago when I was poor, I would buy a beautiful piece of jersey, cut a hole in the top, put it over my head and tie a beautiful sash around my waist. Everyone asked where I bought my dresses.”

--Gloria Guinness