Thursday, July 10, 2008

What shaped your idea of beauty and style?

Inspired by Fops and Dandies post about her favorite kids' book, style-wise (http://fopsanddandies.blogspot.com/2008/07/happily-ever-after.html): My two main children's books (that I got out from the local library hundreds of times, and recently hunted down to add to my own collection) that shaped my ideas of style were the Big Golden Book of Fairy Tales, published in the 50s, translated by Marie Ponsot and illustrated by Adrienne Segur, and the Eroll Le Cain illustrated version of Twelve Dancing Princesses, published in the 70s. Both are out of print - although Golden a few years ago did a reissue of the Segur book, but on shiny paper rather than heavy, matte, rag paper (totally changed the quality of the illutrations). Take a look at these sites - http://errollecain.com/twelve_dancing.htm and http://segur.artpassions.net/ - for some deliciousness. Segur's illustration for Bluecrest is why I have so much costume jewelry today (couldn't copy it, so it's linked below)! If you get obsessed with huntign any of these books down now, don't blame me. It took me about 5 years of on-and-off searching to find a pristine but affordable copy of the Segur book - even the copy at my childhood library had beed scribbled on (someone really hated Thumbkin). http://www.artpassions.net/cgi-bin/show_image.pl?../galleries/segur/ftbluecrest.jpg

1 comment:

Mrs Fashion said...

Hello, I thought you should know...
I'm back blogging!