A Token of Elegance: Cigarette Holders in Vogue

2015 | Art, Photography & Fashion

The book offers an unprecedented look at cigarette holders through a selection of approximately 125 pieces from the collection of Carolyn Hsu-Balcer. Its introductory essay is both a social history of that world-changing leaf, tobacco, and a design history of its accoutrements. It examines the history of smoking from its pre-Columbian roots in the Americas through to the present-day worldwide e-cigarette craze, taking the reader on a journey from tobacco smoking as a sacred ritual, through the controversies of its worldwide spread, and the machine-rolled cigarette's role in the world wars and as a tool for European and American women's equality. Following the illustrated essay is a luxurious catalogue of newly commissioned photography that makes these diminutive objects pop off the pages with brilliant colour and form. The collection includes cigarette holders in their simplest incarnations - the disposable promotional holders given away at trendy New York nightclubs - to their most exquisite - the work of Faberge, Cartier, Tiffany, Van Cleef & Arpels, and other renowned jewellers of the late nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries.Carolyn Hsu-Balcer is a designer, philanthropist and art collector based in Los Angeles and New York.

She has organised ground-breaking art exhibits including Xu Bing Tobacco Project (VMFA), "Light Before Dawn" (Asia Society Hong Kong), "Blooming in the Shadows" (China Institute), and "Oil and Water" (MOCA NY).

Martin Barnes Lorber (Author)

Rebecca McNamara (Author)

John Bigelow Taylor (Author)