Sunday, October 22, 2006

YE OLDE PRINTED MATTER OF YORE. PART II...

So, anyway.....The book I'd been hoping the Marie Antoinette one would be more like (see previous post) was this book: The Audrey Hepburn Treasures. Amazing. I'm not even particularly Audrey Hepburn's greatest fan. I mean I like her and I happened to see Breakfast at Tiffany's when I was about eleven which became my most watched and loved film for many years. But I would recommend this book to anyone, even just to go and have a flick through because it's so beautifully, lovingly done. I have never seen anything like it. Juicy it is.

It's basically a big hardback whopper of a book, recording her life from beginning to end, with lots of pictures I'd never seen before. The very, very special thing about it is that in each chapter there is a transparent sleeve filled with reproductions of Audrey's personal papers such as two pages from the script of Breakfast at Tiffany's with notes in pen, handwritten notes, her Oscar receipt, official documents, her son's birth announcement. They are all reproduced on the right weight of paper, in every little detail to look just like the original. You really do feel that you're sifting through treasures.

It actually brought a tear to my eye the first time I looked at it. It was written by Ellen Erwin, the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund executive director (to which a portion of the proceeds from the book go) and Jessica Diamond, the Audrey Hepburn Estate's archivist/photo curator, and obviously there has been a huge amount of input from her sons. Every page reinforces that it's been produced by people who knew and loved her.
Audrey and son Sean on location in St. Tropez, 1966. That is exactly how I would like to be dressed on holiday in 2006.




At a grocery store in California, 1958.





On the set of Sabrina, 1953. Oh Audrey!














Oh my, I am buried under printed matter, and I haven't even told you about all the magazines I bought last week. Strangely, Blueprint (the Martha Stewart one, not the British one) I absolutely loved and adored, the third issue of Lula - not so impressed as with the first two.

8 comments:

Moi said...

I want to get that book so badly!!!

Claire said...

It's so, so good and the kind of tome you'd expect to be about £50 but I got mine for £26 at Waterstone's...you'll love it!

RD said...

Now Audrey Hepburn, there I understand the mystique completely. Elegant to the bone, stylish,
but above all with a sense of vulnerability that makes you love her, not only admire her.

Do you think we live in fallen age, when people no longer look like that while shopping for
groceries? I'm going to give this a try. Put on a fine outfit, head to the grocery store, walk down
the produce aisle, and see what happens.

Cheers,

BB

la femme said...

Wholeheartedly agree re: her St. Tropez outfit...

Anonymous said...

i think I have to get this AH book-- and today? off to see "the" film with my niece-- woot.

~bluepoppy

Olivia said...

Dear Lola is Beauty, I have just stumbled across you via Sprink and have now worn my eyes out, obsessively reading from the beginning all the way through to March. I have to stop and eat watercress soup now, but I'll be back. Oh my, I'll be back.

Julia said...

The St Tropez look is my ideal self...

Julia said...

And I think I will get this for my mum for Christmas. It looks really special.