Product Description

This one-of-a-kind book of 300 photographs of some of the most celebrated actors, artists, models, First Ladies, and social figures draws on stories that have appeared in the pages of over the past four decades, as well as photographs from those stories that have never been published. These trendsetters and newsmakers are captured by such famous photographers as Cecil Beaton, Jonathan Becker, Eric Boman, Horst P. Horst, Edward Steichen, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Franois Halard, Helmut Newton, Stephen Meisel, Snowdon, Toni Frissell, Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, and Annie Leibovitz. Not only did these photographers take dazzling portraitsin studios or on locationthat caught these iconic figures in classic, playful, or dramatic moments but they also documented their parties, weddings, houses, and gardens. Writers like Hamish Bowles, Paul Rudnick, Truman Capote, Francis Wyndham, Jeffrey Steingarten, Joan Juliet Buck, William Norwich, Gloria Steinem, Georgina Howell, Vicki Woods, Marina Rust, Michael Specter, and Jonathan Van Meter tell you the stories behind these figures and events.

Here are the glamorous weddings of Plum Sykes in Yorkshire, Lauren Davis in Cartagena, and Minnie Cushing in Newport; Truman Capote writing about cruising the Yugoslavian coast with Lee Radziwill, Luciana Pignatelli, and the Agnellis; gardens from East Hampton to Corfu designed by landscape architect Miranda Brooks; Ins de La Fressanges apartment in Paris; Gloria Steinem reporting on the 540 masked partygoers at the Black and White Ball Truman Capote threw for Katharine Graham at the Plaza hotel; the gardens of Valentinos seventeenth-century Chteau de Wideville, outside Paris; the designers, the best-dressed, and the stars at the annual Costume Institute party at the Metropolitan Museum; Mick Jagger and his family in Mustique; Jacqueline Kennedy and Michelle Obama; Kate Moss, Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Ali MacGraw, Anjelica Huston, Nicole Kidman, Cher, Iman and David Bowie, Penlope Cruz, Charlotte Rampling, and many more.

Richly illustrated in black-and-white and color, is a stunning look at portraits, houses, gardens, and parties of celebrated figures from many worlds.