Friday, September 28, 2012

MID CENTURY COOL



The Flower
photographed in Charles James's design studio by Louis Faurer
Flair 1950







Flair staff photographer Louis Faurer photographs 'a striking range of mood from the "Cool" disciples of Birdland' and Sonny Stitt with sax below, 'to romantic rose fashions' as above.


COOLNESS 
... the word has moved into the special language of the jazz world - a language quicker to obsolesce than any other form of slang. Its use demands complete authority; one dated syllable or inflection unmasks the outsider.

   In the circles of last year's hipsters and beeboppers. coolness is all.  It is spreading through Harlem, it has hit Broadway - in  a vast cavern called Birdland.

The uniform of coolness is no exhibitionist style of dress: it is an expression. Patient, remote, the young practitioners at bandside look like first cousins of the "non-engage" students in Paris existentialist cellars.

Louis Faurer is represented in the photography collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Cool at devodotcom
Coolness
Flair 1959
Photography: Louis Faurer 

No comments: