Flair Magazine by Fleur Cowles

The first time we spoke, Anja Charbonneau (founder, editor-in-chief, and creative director of everything Broccoli) asked me if I had ever seen FLAIR, Fleur Cowles’ short-lived, legendary magazine. I had not, but when I looked it up, I was enthralled. This summer, I finally started piecing my own collection together and can report that FLAIR is even more wonderful in person. Each issue has a theme—for example, May 1950 was the rose, and its pages were scented like roses. I keep huffing my copy, hoping to catch the smell of ghost roses. Each issue has extravagant, winsome details like gold ink and silver paper, mini-book inserts, fold-out spreads, absolutely irresistible peek-a-boo cutouts (think tiny windows that open to reveal the rooms within), plus a veritable bonanza of batty old ads. Everyone from Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dali to Ernest Hemingway and Gypsy Rose Lee wrote for FLAIR; Saul Steinberg’s cartooned ready-mades star in an inset booklet. Rose-scented pages and fancy bylines did not come cheap, though; each issue printed lost $.75 cents, which is millions in today’s money, which is why it lasted just one year, even though it was an absolute sensation at the time.