A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life In Fashion, Art, and Letters [Hardcover]

Penelope Rowlands (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2005

Carmel Snow lived larger than life - she dressed to perfection, was fond of dramatic pronouncements, and had a savage passion for discovering creative genius. It is fitting, then, that her career at the helm of Harper's Bazaar forever changed the face of fashion magazine publishing. Early in the twentieth century, when the typical fashion magazine was narrowly concerned with dressing well, Snow's progressive editorial vision included art, fiction, photography and reportage. Along the way, she launched the careers of would-be legends, including Andy Warhol, Lauren Bacall, Truman Capote and Christian Dior. "A Dash of Daring" chronicles the extraordinary life of Carmel Snow on both sides of the Atlantic, beginning in nineteenth-century Ireland and continuing on to Paris, Milan and New York City, the fashion capitals of the world. Overflowing with previously untold stories of the colourful and glamorous - including Richard Avedon, Andre Leon Talley, Diana Vreeland, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, and the members of the legendary Algonquin Round Table - "A Dash of Daring" is a compelling portrait of the fashion world during a golden era.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From her perch as editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar from 1932 to 1957, Carmel Snow (1887–1961) defined fashion for hundreds of thousands of American women for a quarter century. Her apprenticeship in fashion journalism began when Condé Nast hired her at Vogue in 1922. Jumping ship a decade later to work for Nast's rival, Hearst's Bazaar, Snow set out to redefine the fashion magazine to include anything—fiction, diets, theater reviews, politics—of interest to a fashionable woman. To give Bazaar a unique and arresting visual style, she hired layout artist Alexei Brodovitch, plus a succession of innovative photographers: Man Ray, Munkasci, Dahl-Wolfe, Avedon. For verbal flair, Snow hired the always outrageous Diana Vreeland, and commissioned works from creative artists like Truman Capote and Andy Warhol. Rowlands, who freelances for the fashion press, is great at explaining the fashion world—the rise and fall of key designers, or the significance of various styles. But she's clearly uncomfortable exploring Snow's personal side; the editor never emerges as a flesh-and-blood woman until the last chapters, when she's being unwillingly retired from Bazaar. Still, this lavishly illustrated and entertainingly informative fashion bio is "must" reading for the W set. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

In 1920, the thirty-three-year-old Carmel Snow was whisked from her mother's high-society dressmaking shop to be assistant fashion editor at Vogue. In 1932, she defected to Harper's Bazaar, and presided there until 1957, becoming an industry legend (she received the Légion d'Honneur for her support of French couture). Snow not only spotted trends but created them, using the magazine to boost designers such as Balenciaga, styles like the sack dress, and talents from Richard Avedon to Truman Capote. Rowlands's finely researched biography is a frothy read—like leafing through decades' worth of fashion magazines—but Snow, however charming, had a darker side: she was ruthless in pursuit of her goals, largely ignored her society husband and docile daughters, and drank prodigiously. When in Paris, it was said, she lived on "martinis, French pastries, and vitamin B injections."
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Atria; First Edition edition (November 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743480457
• ISBN-13: 978-0743480451
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,375,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in London and raised there and in New York City. Two parents of two nationalities on two continents -- you get the idea. Naturally, I escaped (recurrently) to France.... Paris, to be exact. Which is the actual subject of my latest book, Paris Was Ours, a collection of memoirs of the city, many of them commissioned by me and published for the first time, by some amazing writers from all over the world.

As for background, I'm an author and journalist who relishes writing non-fiction for numerous reasons, the main one being that I like / love the challenge of describing things as accurately as I can -- trying to make sense of it all -- while writing in a way that (I hope) people want to read. I always, always learn along the way. I've written for a lot of publications, Vogue, Architectural Digest, The Daily Beast, and The New York Times among them, and I've bounced around a bit in the world. My hopes for the future? Exactly that: More articles, more books, more travel. I'll keep you posted....

(So will Twitter! Look for me there at @penrowl)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Bazaar Life, March 12, 2006

By 

Veronique Vienne "grateful reader" (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life In Fashion, Art, and Letters (Hardcover)

When you crack open a 500 page book, it better be good. This biography of Harper's Bazaar fashion editor Carmel Snow is everything a heavy tome should be: entertaining, insightful, and thouroughly researched. The writing style is a perfect match for the subject matter: Penelope Rowlands' prose is as sharply defined as a couture garment, and, as a result, reading her book is the next best thing to actually owning a Dior original.

But the most rewarding part of the book is the revelation that elegance is all about gutsiness. In fact, if you look objectively at the clothes women wore back then (the book is rife with photographic documents) all those proper little wool suits and belted silk dresses look quite frumpy in restrospect. But what poise those girls had! Where did their get their attitude? Reading A Dash of Daring is a lesson in real coolness.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Dash of Delight, February 2, 2006

By 

Ms. Parker "constantreader2006" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life In Fashion, Art, and Letters (Hardcover)

This is a handsomely produced book, filled with wonderful photos, about a fascinating woman, the daughter of an Irish immigrant, who traveled the major capitals of the world and transformed Harper's Bazaar into one of the liveliest magazines of the 20th century. Clearly and elegantly written, the book is rife with wonderful anecdotes about major designers, writers, artists, movie stars, and grand eccentrics. Snow's was an extraordinary life, and Rowlands does it full justice while giving us a detailed portrait of the fashion world during its golden age.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Than A Dash, March 1, 2006

By 

William A. Chanler - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life In Fashion, Art, and Letters (Hardcover)

"A Dash of Daring" is a biography that offers a comprehensive look at a fashion icon. The life of Carmel Snow should interest fashion connousseurs and others alike. This reader was especialy fascinated by the detailed description of life in war-torn Paris. It is relevant to the world today.