Bali Chic – at a Bookstore Near You

(4/13/2009)

The English writer and critic, James Laver (1899-1975) provided a penetrating insight into fashion and style when he said: "The same dress is indecent ten years before its time; daring one year before its time; chic (contemporarily seductive) in its time; dowdy five years after its time; hideous twenty years after its time; amusing thirty years after its time; romantic one hundred years after its time; beautiful one hundred and fifty years after its time."

Akin to capturing fireflies in a jar, any book that sets out to define chic is doomed to a short shelf-life; the story it tells flickers and quickly fades, superseded by the latest trend in fashion and style. Despite being highly perishable, books attempting to describe "chic" provide a snapshot frozen in time of contemporary life - the tastes, mores and pastimes that color modern life.

Bali Chic

Didier Millet's new edition Bali Chic is a sumptuous tour de force of the currently trendiest gathering hotels, villas, restaurants, shops, galleries and spas populating Bali's "in list." Hard-core Bali devotees will justifiably argue that such a book – cataloging style and taste on what is arguably the most favored island pied-à-terre for globe-trotting glitterati, is in fact a how-to-do life style guide for those not fortunate enough to live on Bali.

Hyperbole? Yes, perhaps, but forgiveable on an island that prides itself on repeatedly being named the world's most preferred tropical island destination. And, at the very least, this book does lives up to its publisher's claim of being "the savvy travellers best companion."

Available in leading bookstores and on-line book stores.