Just in time for Day of the Dead, the holiday Mexicans celebrate with skulls made of sugar and outrageously baroque, incredibly cool handmade altars, comes this new book from Left Coast Design Studio. Treat yourself and check it out – inside you’ll see photos that give the ancient tradition a surprising twist.
In these gorgeous photos, the calaveras, or skull figures, seem to have stepped straight out of 1950s Los Angeles. Men in guayaberas and pork-pie hats lean against classic cars; voluptuous cholas lounge seductively inside those same cars; a surfin’ skeleton poses with his longboard. And we love their morbid take on Grant Woods’ American Gothic.
To create these remarkable images, Left Coast’s Lindsey Kimball teamed up with makeup designer Austin Ivey and hair stylist Linsey Brown to transform 20 models into elaborately painted calaveras. We’re glad they did. Their book captures the humor and beauty of Dia de los Muertos, and give a celebration that honors the dead one more way to live on.
