The very lovely people behind the Chronicle Books Blog invited (or perhaps the better word would be: allowed) me to do the most hilarious and super duper fun little project--for 4 days I dressed in 4 outfits inspired by the covers of 4 of my new Spring 2016 books and had my photo taken with the book in hand by our utterly fabulous in-house photographer Irene Kim. Amazing! Such an entertaining little challenge to undertake, and really such an honor. I loved doing it. I want to do it more. Here's what I had to say about each book + outfit combo:
Day 1 Today’s book is Feathers by Robert Clark—soon to be beloved near and far as a gorgeous marriage of art and science—but perhaps less frequently appreciated as fashion inspiration. Robert, an award-winning National Geographic photographer, has created a fascinating look at bird feathers and their evolution that’s as smart as it is stunning. Bird plumage is one of the most brilliantly colorful things in all of nature, and, for me personally, brilliant color is one of the most wonderful things about getting dressed, so this was a perfect book to start with. However, this one actually caused me to tone things down a bit, color-wise. Normally I might pair other bright colors with my bright red sweater, but our super graphic and striking cover design led me to pair red with just black and white—and it totally worked out. Very happy with this pairing.
Day 2 The book of today is Create Now!, a systematic guide to artistic audacity by the amazing Marlo Johnson. This little book breaks down the creative process into a choose-your-own-path adventure—you answer a series of multiple choice questions to get you over any and all hurdles in your way and get your creativity flowing. Thus, it seemed particularly apt to pair this creative book with an article of clothing made by two of the very most creative authors it’s ever been my pleasure to work with: Michelle Blade (of The Circadian Tarot) and The Thing Quarterly (of The Thing The Book)—they collaborated last year to create the Aura Scarf I’m wearing today. The blues, oranges, and yellows go perfectly with Create Now!’s cover. Add a yellow-and-white dress and a turquoise cardigan, and there you go.
Day 3 This book is The Little Pleasures of Paris by Leslie Jonath, with illustrations by Lizzy Stewart—a celebration of all the wonderful small joys that make Paris the oh-so-delightful place it is. I love that we chose an image for the cover that shows the Eiffel Tower at night—of course there are a lot of books about Paris out there, and a lot of them have the Eiffel Tower on their covers—but you almost never see the nighttime view, and it’s just so gorgeous and glamorous and romantic. I knew right away I wanted to wear my rather glam night sky print blouse (I bought it for the Chronicle holiday party last year and it has cut-outs on the sleeves!), and added a yellow skirt to match the lit-up tower and red necklace to go with the cute red spine treatment. This one might be my favorite yet. Maybe. So hard to decide!
Day 4 I thought The Joy of Swimming by Lisa Congdon—an utterly fabulous illustrated celebration of all things related to our collective love of getting in the water—would the easiest one, because the colors on the cover are basically all the main colors in my wardrobe. But when I started putting my outfit together, I realized that it was a lot of colors: pink, red, orange, green, blue, yellow, black, and white. Wow. Pink cardigan, blue shirt, and green watery-looking skirt were easy enough, but to get the rest in there I had to get a bit creative with accessories—hence the orange, red, pink, and white scarf worn as a belt, and the big round yellow button to go with Lisa’s sun (it’s a vintage button my husband found in a thrift shop that says “Have you Farquared today?” and no one, not even Google, seems to know what that means).
No comments:
Post a Comment