Books of Style: Holiday Books About Pearls, Parties and Peace



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These books present an escape from the pall of politics and toward the more palatable allure of, say, pearls.

As Perry Como used to tell us, “No matter how far away you roam / For the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home.” And all the more so if there are attractive books on the coffee table.

Suitable for presentation under the tree, menorah or even a candelabra, these 10 tomes present an escape up, up and away from the pall of politics and toward the more palatable allure of, say, pearls.

The Pearl Necklace” (Assouline, $85, 300 pp.), by the jewelry historian Vivienne Becker, traces the history of the accessory through its association with the Mikimoto brand. History buffs can revel in the academic introduction to the pearl — extending back to Cleopatra — while the more aesthetically inclined can steep themselves in the rich mess of photos and illustrations portraying pearl-draped icons from Queen Elizabeth I to Lady Gaga.

Frippery — even at its finest — doesn’t always do the trick in touchier times. For those looking to really skip town this holiday season, sans the hefty airfare, Condé Nast Traveller Britain’s “Chic Stays” (Assouline, $85, 264 pp.) may suffice. Boldface names from entertainment and fashion (Sofia Coppola, Alessandra Ambrosio and Eddie Redmayne among them) reveal their favorite escapes: for Ms. Ambrosio, it’s the languor of the UXUA Casa Hotel and Spa in Trancoso, Brazil; while Ms. Coppola prefers her family’s Palazzo Margherita in the town of Bernalda, Italy.

“Upstairs, there’s a big salon with a movie screen, where my father” (Francis Ford Coppola to you and me) “has put the whole Martin Scorsese collection of the history of Italian cinema in the library,” Ms. Coppola says in the book. “There’s something very romantic about these old Italian films, in this old Italian house — it makes you feel like you’ve stepped into another life.” If only!

For a trip to colder climes, “Russian Splendor: Sumptuous Fashions of the Russian Court” (Skira Rizzoli, $95, 448 pp.) mines the portraits, objets and costumes in the State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg for a touch of the fur-trimmed luxury of the 19th-century Imperial Court. Ceremonies at the Winter Palace come to startling, tactile life within the folds of rosettes tracing the back of Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna’s court dress from 1860, or in the sweeping velvet train of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna’s blue-and-gold gown.

Skip forward in time, and the court’s masquerades of the 19th century find a 20th-century parallel in the “café society” immortalized by Baron de Cabrol in whimsical collaged form. The author Thierry Coudert follows his 2010 “Café Society” with this year’s “Beautiful People of the Café Society: Scrapbooks by the Baron de Cabrol” (Flammarion, $120, 264 pp.), a peek into a rarefied world that spanned continents in its pursuit of glamour and gaiety. With a decidedly Surrealistic bent, the baron’s scrapbook pages blend text, photography and watercolors into a visual feast of balls, galas and other festivities featuring personalities with patrician names (see: Windsor).

Though Frida Kahlo wasn’t one of the luminaries chronicled by Cabrol, she shared an affinity for the avant-garde (indeed, the surreal) as rendered through fashion’s lens. Known for her portraiture and, later, her complex political entanglements, Kahlo has long taken her rightful place in the canon of style idols of great substance, a status reaffirmed in Susana Martínez Vidal’s “Frida Kahlo: Fashion as the Art of Being” (Assouline, $195, 184 pp.).

“The idea that we can author our own visual destinies, make up our own rules, turn our backs — literally — on physical limitations, is no doubt the reason that Kahlo’s unflinching gaze continues to stare out from what seems like a million mood boards in a million ateliers,” Lynn Yaeger, a Vogue contributor and an idiosyncratic style setter herself, writes in the book’s introduction. Kahlo’s blooming headpieces, intricate embroideries and appropriation of indigenous silhouettes are all au courant on today’s runways.

Somewhere on the other side of the fashion equator lolls Brigitte Bardot: the cat-eyed, beehived bombshell of French midcentury cinema, who, now in her 80s, is more associated with incendiary political and racial commentary than her wardrobe. That said, the journalist Henry-Jean Servat, who has had the rare opportunity to cover Ms. Bardot over time, has elicited a recent interview about style from the reclusive actress for “Brigitte Bardot: My Life in Fashion” (Flammarion, $45, 256 pp.).

Sprinkled with photos of Ms. Bardot in the gingham get-ups, body-skimming sweaters and shoulder-baring tops that outfit her on- and off-screen personas, this book may well spur conversations about celebrity in the shadow of controversy, or just ardor.

The designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is one to court controversy in quite a different way: through his headline-grabbing pieces. Who in fashion’s flock could forget Lady Gaga’s Kermit the Frog-festooned jacket? Rihanna’s Donald Duck sweater dress? Katy Perry’s Barack Obama sequined shift? Well, if you have, they’re all printed in lush, oversize splendor in “Jean-Charles de Castelbajac: Fashion, Art & Rock ’n’ Roll” (teNeues, $95, 352 pp.). “To the Knights of Tomorrow,” Mr. de Castelbajac addresses his readers in a handwritten introduction of charmingly broken English, meaning those who “want to change the world” with their ideas: “Don’t be discouraged.”

Which bring us, unwittingly, back to the state of world affairs — because, whatever one’s beliefs, change seems certain. The illustrator Jean Jullien, whose simple “Peace for Paris” symbol became the image replicated around the world after last year’s devastating terrorist attacks, is the subject of “Jean Jullien: Modern Life” (teNeues, $35, 160 pp.), a compact compendium of his recent work. The actor Jesse Eisenberg wrote the foreword, and who better to introduce Mr. Jullien’s wry, pointed pen-and-ink renderings of our 21st-century neuroses? A must for any of @jean_jullien’s over-600,000 Instagram followers (and this, more likely than not, includes your snap-happy son, daughter, sister or brother).

Elyssa Dimant’s “The New French Couture” (Harper Design, $85, 280 pp.) is an immersive introduction to the eight most stalwart bastions of the haute couture tradition, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Dior among them. Ms. Dimant details the history of these establishments while simultaneously honoring the young voices who, upon receiving the mantels of these houses, have dared break established codes. It’s a toast to a Parisian tradition that, against all odds, is still going strong.

For Manhattanites (and those in the no-longer-outer boroughs), Andrew Marttila’s photographs of “Shop Cats of New York,” written by Tamar Arslanian (Harper Design, $21.99, 176 pp.), is proof that friendly felines are the best distraction when the world seems primed to topple off its axis.

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