Royalty in Vogue [Hardcover]

Josephine Ross (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 205 pages
• Publisher: Contemporary Books; 1ST edition (August 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865532060
• ISBN-13: 978-0865532069
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 8.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,265,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb overview of VOGUE magazine's affair with royalty, August 20, 2002

By 

Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Royalty in Vogue (Hardcover)

VOGUE magazine has long had an affair with royalty, and the photographs herein show ample evidence of that. The title really ought to be amended to read "BRITISH Royalty in Vogue," as the English royals take up by far the majority of the pages, but that's a small quibble.

The photographs certainly are superb--and the reason most folks would be interested in seeing this book--but the text is also marvelously immediate and almost breathless in places. There are firsthand accounts of the rehearsal for George's coronation in 1937, and Cecil Beaton's notes from the abbey regarding Elizabeth's coronation in 1953. These have such a "you are there" flavor that one can almost picture the scene without the aid of the photographs which accompany the text. Beaton writes:

"The massed Peeresses, an inconceivably wonderful sight . . . Their foam-white ermine and dark red velvet looking like a parterre of auricula-eyed Sweet William . . . Their decolletage the palest pampered pink . . . Among them, undoubtedly the most beautiful is the young Duchess of Devonshire, wearing the original eighteenth-century coronation robe belonging to Georgiana, Gainsborough's Duchess . . . "

The photographs themselves are beautiful, of course, but let us remember that this is VOGUE and that beauty in the subjects was also of paramount importance. Princess Marina of Greece and Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott appear in several photographs, looking almost as classically beautiful as Roman busts. Of course there are ample photographs of the lovely Diana, Princess of Wales, and her country-girl-pretty counterpart Sarah Ferguson--in their wedding gowns and in other outfits. And lastly, there are many, many photographs of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor--looking, always, a little tired, very brittle, very wary. It's a fascinating glimpse into a world the vast majority of us know absolutely nothing about.