Eye Magazine turns us onto this book on Edith Head. This book is a retrospective of her career which, to say the least, looks very interesting.

“Edith Head was a legendary costume designer who styled the stars of Hollywood’s golden age – a field which at the time was dominated by men. She received her big break on the film She Done Him Wrong, which starred Cary Grant and Mae West, and featured the often quoted line ‘why don’t you come up and see me some time’. West, who wrote the play Diamond Lil on which the film was based, was typically provocative in her brief to Head: ‘Make the clothes loose enough to prove I’m a lady, but tight enough to show ’em I’m a woman.’”

Read more about Edith Head’s story at Eye magazine and take a leap to see some spreads from the book.

Last year, I had the great pleasure of working on a project with Maira Kalman. She is an artist of truly unique vision, as talented an illustrator as she is a story teller. Kalman’s career is impressive both for output and the number of people she has touched.

Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations of a (Crazy) World is her first museum survey. Along with illustrations, the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia’s exhibition will include an installation of ladders, chairs, and “many tables of many things” – an introduction, if you will, to Kalman’s world. A fully illustrated catalog complements the exhibition.

The exhibition opens today and runs through June 6, 2010. The ICA is located at 118 S. 36th Street in Philadelphia, PA.

Further examples of Kalman’s illustration after the jump.

If you need to get an aspiring graphic designer a present, ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, a book on Colin Fulcher AKA Barney Bubbles’ life work, should do the trick. A radical graphic designer during the 70’s and 80’s, he’s primarily known for his designs for Stiff and Radar records. Bubbles also resdesigned NME in 1978, who still use the masthead logo he created. The book is the first full retrospective of his storied career, get it from Amazon.

Yves Saint Laurent is the first retrospective exhibition of the designers fabled career. Produced by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in conjunction with the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the exhibition covers the work over the course of four themes. Visitors learn about the design process from sketches. Explore the revolution of feminized men’s apparel. Interact with YSL’s vision of color. And, finally, discover the literary and artistic influences that spurred momentum. The Museum has a nice sub-site for the show that you can visit here. Otherwise, head to Montreal before September 28 to see it in person. 

Get a sense of the shows layout after the jump.