Full Description
Designer and interior decorator Dorothy Draper's colour-filled life story is one of high society, money, gossip, and throughout it all, reinvention. Carleton Varney has owned and directed Dorothy Draper & Company, Inc., for almost 60 years. He worked with Mrs. Draper at the end of her illustrious career, and wrote the only biography of her life, The Draper Touch: The High Life and High Style of Dorothy Draper, in 1988. In the book, Varney sets the scene and defines the milieu that Draper was born into in 1889 and from which she escaped to become one of America's leaders in design — a true visionary entrepreneur. Thirty-three years later, Shannongrove Press is releasing this deluxe edition of The Draper Touch. With a new foreword by Varney, newly found photographs, recently discovered historical documents from a private collection, and archival ephemera from Draper's family, this beautiful tome reveals Draper's fascinating journey and the real stories behind her ground-breaking work.
Contents
Contents
Remembering by Carleton Varney
Acknowledgments
(from the original edition)
Preface
Chapter 1 Mrs. Draper Receives a Ghostly Visitor
Chapter 2 Family History
Chapter 3 Growing Up in the Magic Kingdom
Photography Portfolio: Beginnings: The 1890s to the 1920s
Chapter 4 Becoming a Thoroughbred in the Edwardian Age
Chapter 5 Escape
Chapter 6 She Goes into Business
Chapter 7 Depression
Photography Portfolio: Gaining Recognition: The 1930s
Chapter 8 Fame
Chapter 9 The War Years
Photography Portfolio: Heyday: The 1940s to the 1950s
Chapter 10 Her New Family
Chapter 11 What a Swell Party It Was
Chapter 12 The Party's Over
Chapter 13 The Last Grande Dame: A Retrospective
Photography Portfolio: Future Perfect: The 1960s to Today
Afterword/Appendices
Acknowledgments
