Michèle Gerber Klein is the founder of joan vass U.S.A. and is now Vice President of the Liberman Foundation. She has written about art, fashion and arts de vivre for a wide variety of publications. She has served on the boards of the Dia Foundation for the Arts, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum, The Museum at FIT, The Alliance Française, New Arts Publications, Casita Maria, Chez Bushwick, the Brooklyn Rail, The New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation and Fondatzione Bogliasco. She chairs the Whitney Museum of American Art's library committee and is a member of the Architecture and Design and the Photography Acquisition Committees at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan and the Photography Acquisition Committee at the The Whitney Museum of American Art.
"A luscious exposé of a game-changing designer who revolutionized
the fashion industry. In her debut biography, Klein, the founder of
joan vass USA, introduces readers to Charles James (1906-1978), the
notoriously fabulous British-born fashion designer who sought to
incorporate countless areas of study into the art of fashion.
Self-described as "a legend because my work is too little known,"
James started making waves in the fashion industry in the 1930s.
"There were never more than a handful of Charles James matrix
designs," writes the author. "But each one is a masterpiece,
developed with painstaking care and slowness, and so beautifully
calibrated that one small change could throw everything off
balance." This close attention to pristine detail is what set James
apart from the other aspiring designers. More specifically, it was
due to his wild imagination for new ways of stitching fabric
together and his wide social network. Klein organizes the chapters
according to specific people who influenced James or with whom
James went into business, drew inspiration from, or loved.
Interestingly, Klein pushes the biographical genre by writing about
her subject through the stories of those who surrounded him. "
—Kirkus Reviews
"James seems to have met, befriended, loved, or reviled most of the
20th century's great fashion and style makers, from Paul Poiret to
Antonio Lopez, and this book is a who's who of those glittering,
fascinating characters. The impossible Mr. James emerges as one of
the most compelling of them all."
—Hamish Bowles, Vogue.com
"Peppered with society drama, his patrician connections, and the
financial and personal pitfalls that haunted him, she also
memorializes the remarkable women that inspired the creative genius
of James. The author draws on close to 40 hours of
interviews—filmed by Anton Perich, with R. Couri Hay and James in
1977—shortly before his death."
—Jeena Sharma, Interview Magazine
"I loved this book, and could not help but admire the man’s
exquisite if sometimes detrimental resistance to compromise, right
to the end."
—Denis Ferrara, New York Social Diary
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