Hasta La Ideas

Flair was a commercial bomb. Backed by the wealthy husband of its founding editor, the magazine lost millions before folding after a year. That was almost 60 years ago, yet Flair—all twelve issues of it—remains influential and highly coveted for the unique blend of art, literature, fashion, and design that it wrapped in an innovative and expensively produced package. It was the Visionaire of 1950. To thank for that is Fleur Cowles (née Florence Freidman), who died on Friday at—as best anyone can tell—age 101.

Cowles’ post-Flair life included, by her own description, stints as “an American president’s personal representative, decorated by six governments; as a writer of thirteen books and contributor to six others; as a painter, with fifty-one one-man exhibitions throughout the world; patron of the arts and sciences, irrepressible traveller and, more importantly, friend-gatherer.” But it was for her magazine, which featured works by the likes of W.H. Auden and Salvador Dali, that she will be remembered. That, too, is by design. “I want Flair magazine to be considered my obit. And that’s what I want to be remembered by forever,” she told the Associated Press in 1996. “Nevermind any other thing I may have done. It’s Flair that really reflects me.”

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