Bals: Legendary Costume Balls of the Twentieth Century: Legendary Costume Balls of the 20th Century

Bals is about the history of costume balls. Beginning with the bals of the 17th century, the book takes a look at this lost tradition of costume balls, which peaked in the time of Café society in the 1950's. It covers the most famous balls (aka parties) from Paul .Poiret's 'two thousand and one night's ball,' Truman Capote's 'Black and White' Ball in the 1960's and some of the later and earlier less know parties.The book steps back in time to a period where people spent weeks preparing for parties and showed up in costumes that rival any modern day opera. It is filled with inspiration for designers and people interested in that period in time. The book is very large - more of a 'coffee-table' size. It comes in a cardboard pocket.The only reason my rating is not 5 stars is that ,when I placed my order for this book - probably because of the weight- I received a few copies with crushed sides, before I finally got a 'clean' copy. The book is a definite 5 stars plus, the packaging would be 2 stars less.If you love disappearing into a lost time of beauty and imagination, this is the book for you.

I love this book - a good record of times past. Bals like these are no longer possible - it's not about money, but style, elegance andthe interesting people of the time. Highly recommend.

I was disappointed with this book as i had expected beautiful ball gowns and interesting famous people, I hadn't heard of many. But it has a decorative cover and looks good on a shelf!!

A very obscure and forgotten subject,this marvellous book brings back to life memories of an incredible time gone by,a time that most likely we won't see ever again.Extremely well documented with wonderful pictures that will fill your eyes with wonder,it's teh perfect book for bon vivants and people that trascend teh vulgarity of modern times.Just open it and you you will make treasure forever of a quote from Guy De Rotschild-"Man is capable of marvelous inventions,but sometimes he forgets to breathe life into them"

Huge sized book....lovely pictures...very expensive book though.