One of the most common questions I get as an author is whether I have any control over my covers.
The short answer is no.
I typically write up a brief on who the characters in my books are, including any distinguishing features, and any details about setting or theme that might appear in the book. Then, weeks or sometimes months later, I open my email one day to find a beautifully designed cover waiting for my feedback.
This might seem like a very hands-off approach to a very important part of my book, especially when you consider how closely involved authors are with every other aspect of the production of a book. However, designers have a skillset that I don’t have. Where I work best with language, they are visual artists.
I’ve been fortunate to have some beautiful covers in my time writing historical fiction, but there is something unique about the cover for my latest book The Last Dance of the Debutante, a novel about last debutantes presented at court to Queen Elizabeth II in 1958 and their triumphs and challenges. The woman in lilac and lavender draped over a lime-green sofa, gazing off at something we can’t quite see is the perfect embodiment of the glamor and ennui of a debutante’s Season that I tried to capture in this book. She is beautiful but also a little removed—perhaps even uncertain of what the future might hold for her.
I always wonder about my covers, but it wasn’t until the Instagrammer @novels_with_narci posted a side-by-side image of The Last Dance of the Debutante and Pains, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 by Elizabeth Winder that I learned where the beautiful woman on my cover came from and the connection is has to one of the defining fashion models of the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s.
The Woman Behind the Cover
Jean Pachett was one of the first great American models. Born in 1926 in Maryland, she was first signed to the Ford Model Agency in 1948 and quickly rose to prominence. She featured on more than 40 magazine covers including the iconic January and April 1950 Vogue covers, earning her the nickname the “Queen of Fashion Inc.”
An arrestingly beautiful woman with delicate features, Jean became a darling of brands and fashion magazines alike. Her face graced advertisements for major cosmetic brands such as Max Factor and Revlon, and she modeled for such fashion icons as Chanel, Dior, and Charles James.
The Photo Before the Cover
Once I learned the name of the model for the cover of The Last Dance of the Debutante, I wanted to know more. I began to dig online and found that the image used on my book cover did not stand alone. Instead, it is part of a series of photographs shot by the British photographer Norman Parkinson.
Norman Parkinson, who would later go on to become the official photographer for the British royal family, was commissioned to shoot a series of fashion studies of Jean Pachett in Paris for that famous April 1950 edition of Vogue. In this series, she wears the diaphanous evening dress with a satin bow and bodice by French designer Jean Dessès for his spring collection.
In some of the photographs, such as the one that became my cover, Jean Pachett looks wistfully away off camera. In another other, her head is cradled the arm that rests on the back of the sofa. There is a small but playful smile on her lips. She looks as though she has a secret all her own and it amuses her to keep it.
The fashion studies are, themselves, a story all their own. As an author, I always hope that my book covers will evoke a visceral reaction from a reader, tempting them with the promise of what might be inside those pages.
The Last Dance of the Debutante is a book all about finding your place in the world and ultimately deciding what path will give you purpose and lead you to happiness. I love that, through its cover, the book is the link to a woman who, for decades, was at the top of her game.