Limited edition art for a good cause

I'm well aware of the fact that you all love the illustrations for Just Being Audrey by now. How could you not love Julia Denos's adorable drawings of a rosy-cheeked Audrey? Well, if you own the book but would like something more, maybe something worth framing or sending off to friends, Julia has just opened a shop with limited edition prints, both of illustrations from the book and never before seen drawings, plus a darling set of greeting cards. The prints are $50-150, while the note cards are more affordable at $25, but with all of these, proceeds go to the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund. Isn't that great? You get something you love, you support an artist, and children in need are helped as well. Everybody wins.

Bob Willoughby, Audrey Hepburn: 1953-1966

Taschen is trying to kill us.

A few years ago they released Audrey Hepburn (Movie Icons), one of the best little picture books I have ever seen, and now they're at it again. This time it's a monster collection of Bob Willoughby's work with Audrey, spanning 13 years, in a gorgeous hardcover book with a Tiffany blue spine. But there's a catch: the book is limited to a run of 1,000 (with an extra 200 artist's proofs), and they're priced at a pre-order sale of $500. After September 30th, the price jumps to $700 (€500, or £450). I'm dying here. I was just saying how much I love books on Audrey, and I especially love picture books on her. But oh, even I can't justify that price! And I certainly can't afford it. Quel dommage. Who wouldn't love a book that beautiful?

If any of you are ever lucky enough to own a copy, please let us know what it's like! For now, we shall content ourselves with a virtual tour of the book, showcasing 100 pages, on Taschen's website. (Information via Amazon and Taschen, along with a lovely writeup on Wayneford's Posterous that is worth reading.)

Wait Until Dark Soundtrack

Since it's practically Halloween already, I'm going to talk about a great scary movie, Wait Until Dark. It was Audrey Hepburn's last film before retiring for ten years to focus on her children and family, and the last film for which she earned an Oscar nomination. It's also the last film of hers that was scored by the fantastic Henry Mancini, who wrote "Moon River" for dear Audrey. This soundtrack was a huge departure for Mancini, who usually does what would now be considered as lounge or soft pop music. Unfortunately, the soundtrack was never officially released, so it's impossible to find. It was never on vinyl, sadly, and was never on CD ... until now! After searching high and low for this, there seems to be only one place that offers the Wait Until Dark soundtrack.

Film Score Monthly offers a rare or never before released soundtrack every month with their magazine, and each album is a limited run. Through the Screen Archives Entertainment website you can buy your own copy of the soundtrack, sans magazine, for $19.95. It's a limited press of 3,000 copies, so this definitely won't be around forever! It's a shame I didn't think to look sooner, because the soundtrack would have been a great addition to your creepy Hallween music. Well, there's always next year. The picture at top left is the cover of the soundtrack, very scary. You can read more about the soundtrack and Henry Mancini here, as well order your own copy and even preview some tracks from the album. This might be the only chance we ever have to own this soundtrack! I've already ordered my copy.

Audreybags

There's some big news today! Huge thanks to sharp-eyed reader Alanna for finding out that the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund is set to release a limited-edition line of handmade Italian purses with Audrey's image on them! There are 12 different designs, with 36 bags of each design being made. So that means a scant 432 bags were made, making it very limited edition. The bags will be available November first, when the official website launches. In the meantime you can read more about the bags and the designs here, and if you'd like to see bigger pictures of all 12 bags, go here and view the PDF press release (link at the top of the page). It has great, full-page pictures of all of the bags, plus dimensions and some information on what the Children's Fund has been up to lately. I can't wait! My favourite is to the left.

I'm starting to feel a little like Holly Golightly here. Is there a rich sugar daddy in the house, willing to buy a poor girl a posh handbag? It's for a good cause! :)