Joan Juliet Buck

From Joan Juliet Buck, former editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue comes her dazzling, compulsively readable memoir: a fabulous account of four decades spent in the creative heart of London, New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, chronicling her quest to discover the difference between glitter and gold, illusion and reality, and what looks like happiness from the thing itself. Born into a world of make-believe as the daughter of a larger-than-life film producer, Joan Juliet Buck’s childhood was a whirlwind of famous faces, ever-changing home addresses, and a fascination with the shiny surfaces of things. When Joan became the first and only American woman ever to fill Paris Vogue's coveted position of Editor in Chief, a “figurehead in the cult of fashion and beauty,” she had the means to recreate for her aging father, now a widower, the life he’d enjoyed during his high-flying years, a splendid illusion of glamorous excess that could not be sustained indefinitely. Joan’s memoir tells the story of a life lived in the best places at the most interesting times: London and New York in the swinging 1960s, Rome and Milan in the dangerous 1970s, Paris in the heady 1980s and 1990s. But when her fantasy life at Vogue came to an end, she had to find out who she was after all those years of make-believe. She chronicles this journey in beautiful and at times heartbreaking prose, taking the reader through the wild parties and the fashion, the celebrities and creative geniuses as well as love, loss, and the loneliness of getting everything you thought you wanted and finding it’s not what you’d imagined. While Joan’s story is unique, her journey toward self-discovery is refreshing and universal.

A Memoir

The Price of Illusion

Iris Bromley, the unhappy daughter of a California orange juice magnate, encounters a world of film directors, actors, models, gossip columnists, and gambling tycoons on her road to maturity

A Novel

The Only Place to be

From Joan Juliet Buck, former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris and “one of the most compelling personalities in the world of style” (New York Times) comes her dazzling, compulsively readable memoir: a fabulous account of four decades spent in the creative heart of London, New York, Los Angeles, and Paris—“If you loved The Devil Wears Prada, you’ll adore The Price of Illusion” (Elle). In a book as rich and dramatic as the life she’s led, Joan Juliet Buck takes us into the splendid illusions of film, fashion, and fame to reveal, in stunning, sensual prose, the truth behind the artifice. The only child of a volatile movie producer betrayed by his dreams, she became a magazine journalist at nineteen to reflect and record the high life she’d been brought up in, a choice that led her into a hall of mirrors where she was both magician and dupe. After a career writing for Vogue and Vanity Fair, she was named the first American woman to edit Vogue Paris. The vivid adventures of this thoughtful, incisive writer at the hub of dreams across two continents over fifty years are hilarious and heartbreaking. Including a spectacular cast of carefully observed legends, monsters, and stars (just look at the index!), this is the moving account of a remarkable woman’s rocky passage through glamour and passion, filial duty and family madness, in search of her true self.

Erotic and unforgettable, Daughter of the Swan is a luscious tale of obsessive love between a beautiful young woman and an enigmatic stranger. Florence Ellis' romantic notions become flesh in the form of golden Felix--whose mysterious disappearance nearly destroys her.

Daughter of the Swan

Abigail Solomon-Godeau

This book accompanies the Fall 2013 exhibition of Richard Avedon's photography to be held at Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills. Over his sixty-year career, photographer Richard Avedon was renowned for his distinctive, transformative eye. Women were often his subject, through his fashion work for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and in his portraiture of both the famous and the unknown. What might have been pictured as prosaic or unattractive through another photographer's lens was presented by Avedon as unconventional, surprising, and sometimes revelatory. Through approximately 120 images, Avedon: Women explores Avedon's unique artistic perspective. The book includes essays by Joan Juliet Buck and Abigail Solomon-Godeau. -Dynamic unbound format available in three colorful translucent plastic covers, each with a unique image. -32 b&w contact prints from the Avedon archives, many previously unpublished -26 color images- two reproductions of vintage tear sheets and 24 rarely seen color transparencies from the Avedon archives -1 double gatefold, removable from layouts -4 Vellum Overlay spreads

Joan Juliet Buck

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