Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986), celebrated photographer, and one of the greatest practitioners the medium has ever known, discovered the Riviera with his first camera in the company of his wealthy family when he was just eleven years old. For the rest of his life Lartigue was a regular visitor to the Cote d'Azur, taking many of his finest pictures in Nice, Cannes, Cap d'Ail, Antibes, Menton, and Monaco. This splendid volume is the first book, to bring together a large selection of these photographs which are accompanied by a lively, informative text. Not only did Lartigue document the elegant resort life of the leisure class of which he was a member-in the villas, hotels, beach clubs, and casinos where they lived and played-but he also created an intimate chronicle of the life he shared on he Riviera with his beautiful first wife Bibi, during the 1920s, his companion Renee Perle, in 1930-31, and Florette whom he married in 1942. Apart from the stunning black-and-white images for which Lartigue is celebrated-including his ground-breaking panoramic photographs of the coastline-"Lartigue's Riviera "also reveals an important group of little-known and rarely published color photographs. The world ski-jumping championships in Juan-les-Pins, filming "Les Aventures du roi Pausole "in Cap d'Antibes, the Ziegfeld Follies girls in Monte Carlo, alternate here with the daily life of Latigue and his friends-stopping for lunch in St. Tropez, exercising on the beach in Cannes, drinking an aperitif at sunset at Cap d'Ail. Among the most beautiful-and often funny and poignant-photographs ever taken, Lartigue's pictures of the Riviera will come as a revelation to those who will bediscovering them for the first time, and as a welcome glimpse of the sunlight and glamour for which he is so admired by his devoted fans.

The Riviera has inspired countless novelists and artists, attracted as much by its visitors as by its location (Somerset Maugham called it 'a sunny place for shady people'). But for the majority of the English, the Riviera was made famous by rumour and report: it was the scene of the romance of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson; and, post-war, became the vacation spot of Hollywood starlets. But the Côte d'Azur has a long history of attracting foreign celebrities and royalty, since the seventeenth century, when it was a stopping point on the route south for aristocratic Grand Tourists. Later, English and Scottish invalids, among them Robert Louis Stevenson, followed doctors' orders and holidayed on the Riviera for their health. Jim Ring explores these origins and the developments that took place on the coast - the impact of rail travel, of war, of celebrity and of the English. 'An entertaining survey . . . It is the ideal book to hide your smirk behind on the Promenade des Anglais as yet another roller-blading granny glides past in a leopard-sking thong.' Sunday Telegraph Jim Ring's Riviera corrals an array of vignettes of the Côte d'Azur's most famous habitués from the Romans to the Rolling Stones . . . a stylish and pleasingly gossipy overview of the region's fluctuating fortunes.' Time Out 'A highly readable history.' Guardian

In Women Writing on the French Riviera Rosemary Lancaster examines the varied literary and artistic works of nine women visitors and their unique contributions to the cultural identity of the Riviera in its seminal rise to fame.

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"In Designing the Seaside Fred Gray provides a history of seaside architecture from the 18th century to the present day, investigating leisure, entertainment, taste, fashion and gender, and shows how the seaside even became a hotbed for moral and sexual issues - from the early use of bathing machines to twentieth-century beauty pageants and naturist groups. He relates the evolution of resort architecture to sweeping changes in how seaside nature was experienced and used by holidaymakers. The book also traces the history of the coastal resort, with examples ranging from Regency Sidmouth to Victorian Scarborough and early 20th-century Morecambe, as well as assessing seaside developments in the USA and Continental Europe, from Coney Island and Santa Barbara to Nice and Trouville." "Featuring many colourful, informative and often entertaining photographs, drawings, guidebook illustrations, postcards and publicity posters from resorts around the world, Designing the Seaside is a thoroughly readables as well as a visually fascinating account of changing attitudes to holidaymaking and its setting."--BOOK JACKET.

In 1926 Barry Dierks, a young American architect, arrived in Paris and fell in love with France... With his partner, an ex-officer in the British Army, he built a white, flat-roofed Modernist masterpiece that rested on the rocks below the Esterel, with views across the Mediterranean. They called it Le Trident. From the moment it was built, it captivated the Riviera. As commissions for more villas flooded in, Barry Dierks and Eric Sawyer, "those two charmers", flourished at the heart of Riviera society. Over the years, Dierks would design and build over 70 of the Riviera's most recognisable villas for clients ranging from Somerset Maugham's Villa Mauresque and Jack Warner's Villa Aujourd'hui to the Marquess of Cholmondeley's Villa Le Roc, and Maxine Elliott's Chateau de l'Horizon, later the home of Aly Khan and Rita Hayworth. Riviera Dreaming tells the dazzling story of the lives, loves and adventures that played out behind the walls of these glamorous houses and provides an unparalleled portrait of life on the Cote d'Azur at the height of the Jazz Age.

The word "luxury" has almost lost its meaning. Once used to describe genuinely prestigious products or places, the concept of luxury has been hijacked by a multitude of aspiring or overpriced commodities, from foot spas to chocolates. So what is real luxury? Which are the genuine luxury brands, and how have they reacted to the rise of the "mass luxury" sector? What strategies do they use to lift themselves into the realm of the truly elite? Who are their customers - and what kind of lives do these remarkable people lead? How do luxury brands attract and retain them? And above all, where can the industry turn now excess is out of fashion? With wit, accuracy and insatiable curiosity, Luxury World takes us on a voyage around the luxury universe, slipping behind the facades of the world's most sophisticated businesses to demonstrate how they function. Among other destinations, Luxury World visits Swiss watchmakers, the Champagne houses of France, the diamond district of Antwerp, the luxury enclave of Monte Carlo, the discreet ateliers of the last craftsmen and a host of brands in Paris - the self-proclaimed capital of elegance. Along the way, he uncovers the true face of today's luxury industry.