COWLES Fleur. Flair Magazine.

(New York, NY): Flair Magazine, 1950.  First edition.  Large quarto.  Bound volume containing the first five issues, March, 1950 – June, 1950 of this flamboyant and yet short-lived magazine  which Time described at its launch as “a fancy bouillabaisse of Vogue, Town & Country, Holiday, etc.,”   Flair was celebrated not only because of its design and editorial production, by European art director Federico Pallavicini, but also because of its lavish production. A beautiful, high-minded cataclysm of a magazine that incorporated cutouts, fold-outs, pop-ups, removable reproductions of artworks and a variety of paper stocks of different sizes and textures.  It was the resulting cost of production that killed the magazine after just 12 issues.  The issues here with illustrations by Rene Gruau, are complete with original covers and inserts bound into a volume of red cloth with gilt lettering to the spine.