Beautiful People of the Cafe Society: Scrapbooks by the Baron de Cabrol

Description

The glamorous aristocrats Daisy and Fred de Cabrol formed one of the most prominent twentieth-century high society couples on the international scene. Leading members of the exclusive cafe society, they socialized with the biggest names in the haut monde-from the Maharani of Kapurthala, to Queen Amelia of Portugal, to their close friends the Windsors. The couple attended every lavish ball of the era and was sure to catch the eye of fashion photographers such as Cecil Beaton at sumptuous parties thrown by Etienne de Beaumont or Marie-Laure Venice. The Winter Ball organized by the Baronne de Cabrol for her charity L'Essor, held at the Palais des Glaces in Paris, remains one of the most memorable and spectacular of the epoch. Reproducing pages from the scrapbooks crafted with beauty and wit by the Baron de Cabrol between 1938 and the 1960s, this volume reveals the privileged and extravagant world of the cafe society. Through collages, watercolors, and previously unpublished archival documents, readers will discover the exceptional journey of a couple who were at once actors and observers in a golden age of elegance and art.

Thierry Coudert is the author of Cafe Society: Socialites, Patrons, and Artists 1920 to 1960 (Flammarion, 2010). He contributed to the exhibition catalog Cartier 1899-1949: The Journey of a Style. A close friend of the late Alexis de Rede, he has assembled a significant collection of archival documents on the cafe society.

"If you go to a fabulous party but don't Instagram it, did it even happen?...Too often these days the answer seems to be no. There's just something about an item existing on your camera roll ad infinitum that solidifies a memory. And while social media illuminati benefit from this tool just like the rest of us plebeians, what did they do 50-plus years ago? The answer is wonderfully laid out in a new book from Flammarion." -Vogue.com "The glamorous European aristocrats from the 1920s to the 1960s are chronicled like never before. The watercolors, collages and archival documents help the reader discover the journey back in time." -The Society Diaries "the holiday season's most alluring book" -Architectural Digest "Next month, Flammarion releases 'Beautiful People of The Cafe Society', a book that sure as anything will have you mad with social envy." -GuestofaGuest.com "Skip forward in time, and the court's masquerades of the 19th century find a 20th-century parallel in the "cafe society" immortalized by Baron de Cabrol in whimsical collaged form." -The New York Times "The recently released Beautiful People of the Cafe Society (Flammarion, $120) opens the doors of the private world of haute monde legends such as Etienne de Beaumont, Charles and Mary-Laure de Noailles, the ever-controversial Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Charles de Beistegui, the Maharani of Baroda, Viscountess Jacqueline de Ribes, Elsa Maxwell, Gianni Agnelli, Christian "Bebe" Berard, Duff and Diana Cooper and Louise de Vilmoran. Even if you don't know who they are, you will want to see how they lived. And boy, did they ever live." -Avenue Magazine "Speaking of prominent tastemakers of the twentieth century, Baron Fred de Cabrol, the late aristocratic French decorator, remains much admired today. A figure who, along with his wife, Daisy, was present at most of last century's most acclaimed balls and gatherings, Baron de Cabrol counted the likes of Duff and Diana Cooper, Charles de Beistegui, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor as friends. Such a glittering social life deserved documentation, but not in prosaic fashion. Baron de Cabrol's scrapbooks, with their charming blend of photographic cut-outs and illustrated backgrounds, present a highly-colorful and delightful record of a social milieu that has all but died out. It's no wonder, then, that author Thierry Coudert has devoted his latest book, Beautiful People of the Cafe Society: Scrapbooks by the Baron de Cabrol, to the Baron's handiwork. Just as he did with his previous book, Cafe Society: Socialites, Patrons, and Artists 1920-1960, Coudert provides the reader with a dazzling account of twentieth-century European cafe society." -Peak Of Chic