Eccentric Glamour

A whimsical personal style guide for women by a celebrated style arbiter offers counsel on how to break free from retail-dictated choices that typically force women to don sexually explicit or otherwise revealing garments, in a reference that explains how to use fashion to convey one's individual mood and personality. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

From burlesque show to fashion runway, magazine cover to Internet video, fashion icon and “burlesque superheroine” (Vanity Fair) Dita Von Teese has undergone more strokes of red lipstick, bursts of hair spray, boxes of blue-black hair dye and pats of powder in a month than a drag queen could dream of in a lifetime. Whether she’s dazzling audiences swirling in a towering martini glass in Swarovski-covered pasties and stilettos or sparking camera flashes on the red carpet, one reality is constant: for this self-styled star, beauty is an art. Now, for the first time in her Technicolor career, Dita divulges the beauty wisdom that keeps her on international best-dressed lists and high-profile fashion show rosters in this illustration and photography-filled opus. In Your Beauty Mark: The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour, Dita and co-writer Rose Apodaca take you through every step of Dita’s glamour arsenal, and includes friends—masters in makeup, hair, medicine, and exercise as well as some of the world’s most eccentric beauties—for authoritative advice. This 400-page book is packed with sound nutrition and exercise guidance, skincare and scent insight, as well as accessible techniques for creating bombshell hairstyles and makeup looks. Among the hundreds of lavish color photographs, instructive step-by-step images and original illustrations by Adele Mildred, this inspiring resource shares the skills, history, and lessons you need to enhance your individual gifts and realize your own beauty mark.

The buzz created by the hardcover of this engaging, tart, saucy, and very frank memoir (Liz Smith) ran from a first serial in W to an Absolut Doonan ad to Hollywood film rights. For twenty years Simon Doonan, the creator of the hottest window displays in the world at Barney's New York, has collaborated with the biggest names in fashion and the most notorious names in art. Whether he's making fun of blondes, sending up Sigmund Freud, or creating caricatures of celebrities, his work has been fearless and entertaining kitsch. Confessions of a Window Dresser illustrates his work in glorious full-color photographs and wickedly witty commentary on the trends and people of the fashion and entertainment world. Here's a dazzling gift of glamour, laughter, and fashion history.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the reader—will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion. In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the “orchid thief,” Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. Praise for The Orchid Thief “Stylishly written, whimsical yet sophisticated, quirkily detailed and full of empathy . . . The Orchid Thief shows [Orlean’s] gifts in full bloom.”—The New York Times Book Review “Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing.”—Los Angeles Times “Orlean’s snapshot-vivid, pitch-perfect prose . . . is fast becoming one of our national treasures.”—The Washington Post Book World “Orlean’s gifts [are] her ear for the self-skewing dialogue, her eye for the incongruous, convincing detail, and her Didion-like deftness in description.”—Boston Sunday Globe “A swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great.”—The Wall Street Journal

Lilith has been feared, worshipped, analyzed, and dissected by many, yet she remains an enigma cloaked in a riddle of witchcraft. Today, she has found a place of elevation as a quintessential goddess in an array of occult practices, revered for her fierce independence, carnal appetite, and thirst for equality. The GLAM Witch plants the practice of modern witchcraft in Lilith's garden of glittery fruit. Laid out over a sparkling assemblage of chapters, a modern mystic will explore the theory, practice, and lifestyle of the Great Lilithian Arcane Mysteries (GLAM).Learn Lilith's story and how to apply her archetype to a magical path.Open your third eye to intuition with signs and synchronicity.Discover Lilith's astrological significance to help navigate the shadow self.Witch-craft a glamour poppet for attraction and beauty.Embrace your sexuality to harness power through orgasm.Neutralize negativity with the application of bitchcraft.Loaded with spells and rituals to cultivate confidence, sizzle with sensuality, and stand up to adversity, The GLAM Witch is a guide to spiritual empowerment and establishing unapologetic authenticity through magical means.

"I have rarely met someone as vivid, as alive, as vital, vivacious, irreverent, joyous, relevant, and needed as Iris. She breathes young air, thinks young thoughts, and gathers no dust. I simply adore her."--Dries van Noten A unique and lavishly illustrated collection of musings, anecdotes, and observations on all matters of life and style, infused with the singular candor, wit, and exuberance of the globally revered ninety-six-year-old fashion icon whose work has been celebrated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and by countless fans worldwide. A woman who transcends time and trends, Iris Apfel is a true original, one of the most dynamic personalities in the worlds of fashion, textiles, and interior design. As the cofounder with her husband, Carl Apfel, of Old World Weavers, an international textile manufacturing company that specialized in reproducing antique fabrics, her prestigious clientele has included Greta Garbo, Estee Lauder, Montgomery Clift, and Joan Rivers. She also acted as a restoration consultant and replicated fabric for the White House over nine presidential administrations. Iris’s travels worldwide and a passion for flea markets of all sorts inspired her work and fueled her passion for collecting fashion and accessories. In 2005, she was the first living person who was not a designer to have her clothing and accessories exhibited at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a blockbuster show that catapulted her to fame and a career as a supermodel, muse, and collaborator for renowned brands, from Citroen to Tag Heuer, and global gigs at Bon Marché in Paris and the Landmark Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong. In 2015, acclaimed director Albert Maysles released Iris, his last film—now an Emmy Award nominee—to a global audience. Now, this self-dubbed geriatric starlet, whose irrepressible authenticity, wit, candor, and infectious energy have earned her nearly a million followers on social media, has created an entertaining, thought-provoking, visually arresting, and inspiring volume—her first book—that captures her unique joie de vivre. Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon, contains an eclectic mix of musings and 180 full-color and black-and-white photos and illustrations—presented in the same improvisational, multifaceted style that have made Iris a contemporary fashion icon. Astute maxims, witty anecdotes from childhood to the present, essays on style and various subjects, from the decline of manners to the importance of taking risks, fill the book as do lists, both proclamatory, revelatory, and advisory. All are paired with a bold, color-filled, exciting design that varies from page to page. Here, too, is a treasure trove of never-before-published personal photographs and mementos, mixed with images from top international fashion photographers and illustrators with enchanting, surprising novelties such as Disney cartoons, vintage postcards, the Iris Apfel Halloween costume for children, and more.

"Popularly associated with black-clad teenagers and rock musicians, gothic fashion encompasses not only subcultural styles (from old-school goth to cyber-goth and beyond) but also high fashion by such designers as Alexander McQueen, John Galliano of Christian Dior, Rick Owens, Olivier Theyskens, and Yohji Yamamoto. Fashion photographers, such as Scan Ellis and Eugenio Recuenco, have also drawn on the visual vocabulary of the gothic to convey narratives of dark glamour. As the text and lavish illustrations in this book suggest, gothic fashion has deep cultural roots that give it an enduring potency." "Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)." -- BOOK JACKET.

Little has been written about the expression of English eccentricity through individual interior design. This work looks at everything from a contemporary rendition of Gothic opulence in Notting Hill to a Victorian interior in Devon, along with private houses, eclectic museums, restaurants, bars and theatres.

From burlesque show to fashion runway, magazine cover to Internet video, fashion icon and “burlesque superheroine” (Vanity Fair) Dita Von Teese has undergone more strokes of red lipstick, bursts of hair spray, boxes of blue-black hair dye and pats of powder in a month than a drag queen could dream of in a lifetime. Whether she’s dazzling audiences swirling in a towering martini glass in Swarovski-covered pasties and stilettos or sparking camera flashes on the red carpet, one reality is constant: for this self-styled star, beauty is an art. Now, for the first time in her Technicolor career, Dita divulges the beauty wisdom that keeps her on international best-dressed lists and high-profile fashion show rosters in this illustration and photography-filled opus. In Your Beauty Mark: The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour, Dita and co-writer Rose Apodaca take you through every step of Dita’s glamour arsenal, and includes friends—masters in makeup, hair, medicine, and exercise as well as some of the world’s most eccentric beauties—for authoritative advice. This 400-page book is packed with sound nutrition and exercise guidance, skincare and scent insight, as well as accessible techniques for creating bombshell hairstyles and makeup looks. Among the hundreds of lavish color photographs, instructive step-by-step images and original illustrations by Adele Mildred, this inspiring resource shares the skills, history, and lessons you need to enhance your individual gifts and realize your own beauty mark.

"Presents an impressive career cut tragically short, featuring a wealth of essays, interviews with Baker's friends, family, and co-workers, a complete checklist of his work, and a treasure trove of his finest artwork, including several complete stories"--P. [4] of cover.