MOTHER'S DAY SPECIALS! SHOW ME MORE
The daughter of Edward and Thelma Brandford, Jacqueline grew up in the Bronx at the 'Coops', a co-operative built for garment workers. She went to Music and Art High School, followed by Syracuse University. She continued her studies in Paris which led to work as an assistant fashion illustrator. From there she was introduced to Christian Dior and the Vogue Editor M. de Brunhoff, which lead to work as a fashion illustrator for Vogue and Bonwit Teller in New York. Her marriage to Fred Ayer led to a move to Thailand, where she wrote and illustrated children's books and started the fashion company Design Thai, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. In later life she worked in India for craft and textile development under Indira Gandhi and in New York and London, designing home furnishings for companies including Bloomingdales and Conran.
.. .a warm and whimsically illustrated parable about the moral courage of withstanding cynicism and the generative power of the affectionate imagination. --Maria Popova, Brain Pickings The book captures, in a way that is completely devoid of any sentimentality, the persistent, stubborn hope of young children. ...Ayer brings Thailand to vivid life, and Enchanted Lion has put great care and consideration, as they always do, into the book's reproduction. You're going to want to hold a copy in hand to feel the cover and pages and take in Ayer's artwork. --Julie Danielson, Kirkus Reviews Blocks of color, and fine lines alternating with crosshatching and patches of rough pencil, give a mystical feeling to this lovely tale from Southeast Asia. --Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal On Jacqueline Ayer: I regress with joy to the delicately drawn world of Jacqueline Ayer's Siam --Sylvia Plath on A Wish for Little Sister, for The New Statesman (1961) Jackie grew up believing that she could accomplish anything. She was graceful, charming, smart, drew beautifully and had an innate sense of style and fashion. ... What is always difficult to understand is the degree to which she changed every culture she was embedded in, from editorial pages to clothing design to fabrics and children's books. Her parents, the neighborhood, her schooling and the remarkable century we shared all contributed to her extraordinary life. --Milton Glaser
