The Windsor Style
Menkes, Suzy. The Windsor Style. First Edition. 1987. Book is in very good condition; dust jacket is in good plus condition. There is a tape-repaired tear to the upper right front cover (jacket shows well in Mylar). Illustration on the dust jacket cover is by Cecil Beaton.
This is a sumptuous study of the couple who turned exile into an aesthetic. Denied a throne, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor made a kingdom of surfaces: immaculate clothes, lacquered rooms, glittering jewels, perfect flowers, famous pugs, and dinners staged with the precision of court ritual. With nearly two hundred color and black-and-white images, the book traces the Windsors’ highly controlled world of fashion, interiors, entertaining, and self-presentation. Photographs and illustrations by Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton, and René Bouché add to the spell. It is one of the essential books on royalty-in-exile style, social theater, and the strange glamour of two people who made taste their form of power.
“Wallis, I discovered, was the epitome of self-improvement. She was a plain woman who worked hard at being chic and enjoyed her quest for fashion perfection.”
--Suzy Menkes