Persona

Let me start off with a correction to the amazon specs:The book is listed as 18.5" x 22" which was a big selling point for me. Note that size includes 2 boxes and the foam inside to protect it. The actual book itself is 14.5" x 18" which is still great.. but notable smaller (4" smaller on each side).The actual weight of the book is over 20 pounds (it's heavy!), even compared to already very-large books like the Rihanna book from Phaidon, this book is huge!Due to the large size of the book, you will likely need some sort of book stand to keep it on. I felt as if the Taschen acrylic stand would crack with use, so I would suggest a sturdier Wood or Metal one even to flip through the pages.The book (fortunately) comes in its own hard cardboard case, with ANOTHER box of cardboard & foam to protect it from damage in transit. This was very important as many books (especially large and heavy ones) will damage at the slightest movement in transit. Great job here!Onto the book itself! As mentioned.. it's huge! Even the pagecount: 480 pages.The book features the GLOSSIEST paper I've ever seen, which is both good.. and bad. It makes the pictures POP.. but also means the pages stick together and literally need to be "peeled" apart the first time going through it (which can damage the pages). This was a big issue with the Louboutin book from recent years. Especially with such a large book, it's a bit annoying that when you try to flip the page you end up having to literally peel the pages apart. I spent about 90 minutes getting through the book to peel apart each page.The other downside of the pages are that ANY little marks will show up very much. So any slight indents, fingerprints, etc.. become immediately noticeable. You essentially need to wear gloves to flip through it if you don't want to see fingers on every page.On the positive, the pages, colors, photos.. they look great! Each page is black gloss with a color photo. It's great to see such sharpness at even a large size like these pages. There's a breakdown at the very end of the book showing all of the photos, the makeup artists and who the model is. One gripe here is the lack of page numbers to be able to locate these specific photos.It's also worth noting that each "photo" set ranges from 1-5 photos. Sets with 1, 3 or 5 photos include a blank/black opposite page while those with 2/4 photos have photos on both the left and right. I normally don't like the blank pages (especially when you have such a large page!) but this one I felt was done really well.The photos themselves are also very good, but my only gripe would be the content of them. I think there are many GREAT photos in it, however there are also many that I just kept flipping through. The book is filled with celebrities, but even being what I would consider to be "in the know" on much of the fashion and celebrity world, there were a LOT of faces that I just didn't recognize at all.Overall, an AMAZING sized book with great quality photos and hundreds of excellent images.. I do wonder if a slightly more edited version would have done better? but in the end, I don't recommend it at all and I know this will be a collectors item in the near future!

Un incroyable livre (pèse extrêmement lourd, et plus grand que prévu, prévoir une GRANDE place pour lui), des portraits somptueux et papier d'une belle qualité