Two books as stunning as Carre don't come along too often. I was hooked from page one. The first book has 228 whole-page scarf photos and book two has 2178 with nine to a page. The collection belongs to Benoit Pierre Emery, who designs for the Paris fashion industry, in particularly Hermes, and he started collecting twenty years ago and has an amazing ten thousand so far.
In both books, the scarves are basically abstract designs and very colorful so they give the wearer a touch of elegance and with many of them the fashion house names are visible: Lanvin; Cardin; Jaeger; Patou; Dior; Ricci; Givenchy; Balmain; Laroche; Feraud; Lapidus; Hermes; Rabanne et cetera. The only information about each scarf is the fashion house name, material (obviously silk) and size.
I prefer book two because most of the spreads are scarf themes and with nine on each page they could be big or small cirles, swirls, squares within squares, zig-zags, star shapes, and kaleidoscopes. There are a few non-abstract pages, one spread has eighteen with a capital letter on each scarf, Sixties pop artist Peter Max has a page but the wonderful thing is the hundreds and hundreds of colorful abstracts. I wonder if many of these scarves are framed and used as wall decor.
I found it a treat to turn the pages of these beautiful square books. Steidl printed them with 175 screen on matt art paper and both books are in a nice slipcase. Carre is a must for anyone in the fashion industry and creative folk who appreciate color and design.
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