Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Schiaparelli

A dazzling first-person picture book biography of the life of iconic fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli by the award-winning team who created Julia, Child. Here is the life of iconic fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, who as a little girl in Rome, was told by her own mamma that she was 'brutta'. Ugly. So she decided to seek out beauty around her, and found it everywhere. What is beauty? Elsa wondered. She looked everywhere for beauty until something inside of Elsa blossomed, and she became an artist with an incredible imagination. Defining beauty on her own creative terms, Schiaparelli worked hard to develop her designs, and eventually bloomed into an extraordinary talent who dreamed up the most wonderful dresses, hats, shoes and jewelry. Why not a shoe for a hat? Why not a dress with drawers? And she invented a colour: shocking pink! Her adventurous mind was the key to her happiness and success--and is still seen today in her legacy of wild imagination. Daring and different, Elsa Schiaparelli used art to make fashion, and it was quite marvellous.

Kyo Maclear and Julie Morstad, the dynamic duo who created the critically acclaimed Julia, Child, team up again to bring to life the childhood memories and the inspiring milestones of the legendary Elsa Schiaparelli. With its warm, lyrical text and enchanting illustrations, Bloom shows readers how ingenuity, vision and self doubt all made Schiaparelli truly beautiful. A gift for her older fans and younger audiences who have yet to discover her genius, Bloom is sure to be an enthralling classic.

As a little girl, Kyo Maclear wanted very badly to be a fashion designer. She spent countless hours in her London home drawing crazy dresses, including a very special giant cloud dress. Although not a fashion designer, Maclear is the critically acclaimed author of many children's books including Julia, Child, Yak and Dove, The Liszts, The Wish Tree and Virginia Wolf. Kyo has an Honours B.A. in Fine Art and Art History an M.A. in Cultural Studies from the University of Toronto, and is a doctoral candidate at York University where she holds a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. When she is not writing, Kyo Maclear plants her garden with flowers in all shades of blue.

Julie Morstad is the award-winning illustrator of The Dress and the Girl; Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova; and Julia, Child, which was a Governor General's Award finalist. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her family.

Ages 5-9

Dimensions: 23.98 x 1.12 x 29.36 cm