The Most Iconic Lips Ever
Photo: Philippe Halsman/Magnum Photos
What do Cindy Crawford, Mick Jagger, and Elizabeth Taylor all have in common? Lips most people would kill for. They’re all featured in “Blow Me a Kiss,” ($30), an inspiring new coffee table book by author and style maven Alice Harris. In addition to celebrities, you’ll also find a mix of unusual and iconic images from artists and photographers like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jeff Koons that will make you subconsciously yearn for a new red lipstick.
Photo: powerHouse Books
Harris has previously compiled photo-driven fashion books about blue jeans, white t-shirts, and stylish wedding day nuptials, but this this time she wanted to focus on gorgeous puckers. “Lips are a way of speaking without using words, so they’re perfect to tell a story,” says Harris. She also wanted to use this opportunity to show a wide range of lips before the era of collagen injections. “It fascinates me how destructive women have become with their lips,” said Harris. “Botched lip augmentation is so gross and so awful that I wanted to highlight true beauty—lips that are thin, lips that are small, lips that are brown, lips that are white. Artists and photographers and filmmakers show the lips that god gave you. Go back to women like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly and Bridget Bardot, who did nothing [to their faces]—look how they aged and how fabulous they were.”
Photo: JUCO, Solange Knowles, 2013
Harris sorted through thousands and photos, hoping to present eye-catching images people had potentially never seen. “The shot of Cindy Crawford is a little provocative and that’s something you don’t always see with her because she’s so all-American.” Other ideas came right off the bat like Mick Jagger, who’s known perhaps as much for his enviable pout, as he is for his music. Though Harris couldn’t get everything she wanted—“some photographers charge so much they’re out of my budget.” Instead, Harris licensed some images for free since all proceeds go to Library for All, which provides books to the needy in developing nations. In the end, Harris curated a gorgeous collection of images she wishes were hanging in her apartment. She hopes readers will enjoy Blow Me A Kiss and take away the message that “Your lips are beautiful. Be happy with what you’ve got.”
Photo: Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos, California, 1955
