Synopses & Reviews
Gloria Vanderbilt is many things: an heiress, a painter, a muse, a designer, a model, a writer, an entrepreneur, an actor, a socialite, a survivor, an icon. She brought the Vanderbilt name out of the Gilded Age and into the Digital Age, reinventing herself over and over along the way. Hers is a story of charisma, glamour, and heartbreaking loss, told here by Wendy Goodman, who had intimate access to Vanderbilt for this book. The illustrations include portraits of Vanderbilt and her extraordinary homes, filled with original and influential decorating ideas, by such photographic legends as Richard Avedon, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Inge Morath, Horst P. Horst, Francesco Scavullo, and Annie Leibovitz. Vanderbilt’s son, Anderson Cooper, contributes a foreword.
Praise for The World of Gloria Vanderbilt:
"Perhaps the definitive-and certainly the most visually stunning-book to capture her incredible life."
-The Huffington Post
"Goodman's book is flush with gorgeous photos and insider dish."
-Good Housekeeping
“Wendy Goodman’s 2010 biography, The World of Gloria Vanderbilt, is considered definitive.”
—Lonny magazine
Review
andldquo;Scheips utilizes 170 black-and-white and color imagesandmdash;some previously unpublishedandmdash;to visually illuminate his fascinating narrative of this peerless womanandrsquo;s life, one that intersected with some of the most colorful and important characters of the day on both sides of the Atlantic, including Elsa Maxwell, William Randolph Hearst, Cecil Beaton, Janet Flanner, Gertrude Stein, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The tome culminates with de Wolfeandrsquo;s final grand fandecirc;te, the second Circus Ball, which defined the glamour and decadence of international society before the lights went out all over Europe.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A treasure trove of close to two hundred unpublished photographs of Elsie de Wolfeandrsquo;s 1939 andlsquo;Circus Ball.andrsquo; [Scheips has] used these as the centerpiece of a book like no other, Elsie de Wolfeandrsquo;s Paris: Frivolity Before the Storm. On the surface, itandrsquo;s a voyeurandrsquo;s dream, a behind-the-scenes look at the high-water mark of a kind of entertaining that went extinct two months later, when Hitler invaded Poland. But more, itandrsquo;s a deep dive, an x-ray of an elite Society that took dinner parties and balls as seriously as we take our workandmdash;because it was their work.andrdquo;
Synopsis
The American decorator Elsie de Wolfe (1858andndash;1950) was the international setandrsquo;s preeminent hostess in Paris during the interwar years. She had a legendary villa in Versailles, where in the late 1930s she held two fabulous partiesandmdash;her Circus Ballsandmdash;that marked the end of the social scene that her friend Cole Porter perfectly captured in his songs, as the clouds of war swept through Europe. Charlie Scheips tells the story of these glamorous parties using a wealth of previously unpublished photographs and introducing a large cast of aristocrats, beauties, politicians, fashion designers, movie stars, moguls, artists, caterers, florists, party planners, and decorators. A landmark work of social history and a poignant vision of a vanished world, Scheipsandrsquo;s book belongs on the shelf with Abramsandrsquo; classics such as Slim Aarons: Once Upon A Time and Tony Duquette.
About the Author
Wendy Goodman is coauthor of Abrams Tony Duquette. She is the design editor of New York magazine, a well as contributing editor for Departures magazine and German and French Architectural Digest. She lives in New York.
Anderson Cooper is the primary anchor on the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°, and author of the bestselling memoir Dispatches from the Edge. He is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt and Wyatt Cooper and lives in New York.