By turns amusing, enlightening, and plaintive, the former kid from Newark who became editor of Vogue remembers her rise and explains her fallwith a little dishing on the side. The daughter of Italian immigrants Florence Bellofatto and Anthony Mirabella, a Ronrico rum salesman who gambled too much and introduced the daiquiri to America, Grace Mirabella launched herself at the postwar fashion establishment because she wanted to be around the best of everything. Rejecting retail, and with a degree from Skidmore and a lot of dancing at the Stork Club under her belt, in 1952 she invaded the WASPy CondÇ Nast world of Babses and Babes, of young editors chosen for their long legs and their connections to the Rockefellers. Women worked at Vogue to earn ``pin money,'' and it was infra dig to ask the cost of anything. Mirabella represented the arrival of the working woman at Vogue; she wanted to celebrate real clothing for really stylish and talented women, clothes that they could use to live full lives. Mirabella tells of her years as Diana Vreeland's assistant; she admires Vreeland's brains and glamour while at the same time cataloguing her eccentricities and excesses. After Vreeland's firing in 1971, she bemoans her own lack of loyalty to her former boss in taking her job. With the advent of the venal '80s, Mirabella also lost favor and was fired after a 17-year tenure. (The editor learned of her dismissal only after Liz Smith announced it on TV.) She blows a few poison darts at the fashion celebrities who made her life miserable, including Richard Avedon and Alex Liberman, the ``yellow Russian'' (in Vreeland's words), and describes her rebound to begin the magazine bearing her name. Occasionally the sad tale of a fashion victim, but most often an interesting, chatty view of the trenches at CondÇ Nast and in women's journalism. (32 b&w pictures, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-42613-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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