Fairie-ality: The Fashion Collection from the House of Ellwand

"The oversize edition is designed as an haute couture catalog. With its saucy copy and retro-VOGUE illustrations, it's spot-on — and out of this world." — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

A Book Sense 76 Selection

An American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults

Winner of a Stora Enso Design and Production Award, British Book Awards

"The colors are so rich, the photo work so meticulous, you can almost feel the whisper of petals and leaves beneath your fingers." — DALLAS MORNING NEWS

"If only the coats and dresses designed for Fairie-ality were life-size."
— ELLE

"Replicates the coy cadences of fashion-speak with glee."
— VILLAGE VOICE

Do you believe in fairies? How about high fashion? Enter the exquisite world of fairie fashion - where feathered hats are designed for maximum lift, oak leaf jackets boast ample wing vents, and flower-petal flats are easily removable for flight.

In the fairie world, there is only one top designer of couture and accessories . . .

Prepare to be enchanted! While humans go about their workaday lives, there is a secret world of well-dressed fairies flitting about in fragile fashions that would take your breath away - if only you could see them. Well, now you can. For the first time ever, elusive fairie couturier Ellwand allows mortals a peek at his ethereal designs in FAIRIE-ALITY, a catalogue so spectacularly crafted it befits a fairie queen herself. Showcased are nearly 150 creations - including dresses, jackets, trousers, shoes, hats, and delicate unmentionables - fashioned wholly from feathers, flower petals, shells, seeds, and other materials from nature. Consider these special features:

Extraordinary production elements, including three specially selected paper stocks; metallic inks; fold-out booklets; vellum envelope with removable fashion card; and numerous half-, third-, and quarter-pages, notably to showcase garments for a playful mix & match, offering dozens of outfits to create.

Drawings by celebrated fashion illustrator David Downton, capturing the graceful, but rarely glimpsed, fairie attired in Ellwand’s designs.

Witty and delightfully romantic captions by Eugenie Bird.

A breathless narrative by a young fairie guiding us from The Season’s start through May Day revelry and a Fairie Tale Wedding.

Filled with authentic fairie lore that will lure fairie lovers by the legion, this superbly designed volume also offers many clever nods to human fashion history. Its fun, fanciful costume descriptions will amuse the fashion-savvy everywhere, while the stunning array of fashions themselves - a veritable dress-up dream - will leave readers of all ages spellbound.

Publishers Weekly

Fairies hover in a handful of enchanting offerings this fall. If Weetzie Bat were one, she might don the diminutive designs featured in Fairie-ality: The Fashion Collection from the House of Ellwand with "couture and photography" by Ellwand, captions by Eugenie Bird and illus. by David Downton. It's the materials that make the clothes so special. Organic offerings include Seashell Sandals, Harlequin Bell Bottoms made from red and yellow gerbera petals cinched with a daisy belt and, of course, the wedding dress, its gauzy train a delicate construction of goose feathers and calla lily, with a snail shell waistline and fluffy rabbit's foot clover rimming the bodice. The oversize edition is designed as an haute couture catalog; with saucy copy ("This elegant and sophisticated gown... blends drama and whimsy a perfect expression of the woman you are" reads the copy for the Mother-of-the-Bride Gown) and retro-Vogue illustrations it's spot-on and out of this world. Budding designers can test their fashion sense with a spread that overlays several 1/3 pages, allowing perusers to mix and match the ingenious outfits. (Nov.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Eugenie Bird is a writer who leads a busy life covering the newest developments in the world of fairie HAUTE COUTURE while flying between homes in the Middle West and New England. Her farm is a well-known gathering place of FASHIONISTAS searching for tranquility away from the hurly-burly of New York, London, and European fashion centers.

David Downton’s renowned and widely published portraits of fashions and super-models, winged and unwinged, have earned him fame in both style circles. In the human milieu, he is considered one of Europe’s leading fashion artists, known for interpreting the designs of Dior, Chanel, Valentino, and Lacroix at the haute couture shows in Paris. His illustrations have appeared in such top fashion magazines as VOGUE, ELLE, and MARIE CLAIRE.