Vogue's Book of Houses, Gardens, People

Text by Valentine Lawford. Introduction by Diana Vreeland. Photographed by Horst.

The Viking Press. New York. 1968. First edition. Hardback, quarto; beige cloth-bound boards, dust jacket. 195 pages. Full page colour and b&w illustrations throughout. English. 325 x 245mm. 1.5kg. . Near fine, in very good dust jacket; light shelf wear to jacket, short 1cm tear to top forecorner, spine unfaded, price-clipped.

During the 1960s Horst's stylised black-and-white studio shots began to full out of favour with the fashion magazines. Diana Vreeland suggested to Horst that he try his hand at shooting interiors. She commissioned a new feature called "Fashions in Living" in which Horst provided photographs of the interiors of a celebrity's house and Horst's partner, Valentine Lawford, would provide the text. It was an enviable job, Horst often spent a couple of weeks staying in the residence to understand fully the building, it's character and it's light. The results were a triumph and the articles ran in Vogue and House and Garden for twenty-odd years. Horst had the ability to capture the essence of the home as a reflection of the personality of the owner. He focussed on the revealing detail, such as the embroidered slipper of Baron Philippe de Rothschild resting on a carpet portrait of Napoleon III. He excelled with the portraits that he took of the owners in their interiors, using his expertise in portrait photography to perfectly capture the dynamic between the owner and their home.
 
Diana Vreeland provides a short introduction and then eighteen homes are featured, including those of Doris Duke, Desmond Guinness, Emilio Pucci, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Baron and Baroness Philippe de Rothschild, Henry Francis du Pont, Cy Twombly, and Lord and Lady Eliot. The photographs and text are taken from the original articles published in Vogue magazine between 1963 and 1968.