KLOSTERS
The Swiss mountain village that became a post-war getaway for many of those who wrote the books, took the photos, made the movies, the deals ... and the headlines
Klosters is a snapshot retrospective of a microcosm of personalities above the clouds that shaped the Swiss mountain village for more than two decades. In the post-war years, Klosters became a discreet winter refuge for writers, actors, artists, and editors—drawn by anonymity, light, and a certain old-world ease. It was a place where books were written, photographs were taken, films were planned, deals were made—and headlines quietly began. The book brings together an archive of images and voices from the era, tracing how a quiet alpine village became an unlikely meeting point of international culture. Published in two editions (2022 and an expanded 2023 edition), Klosters offers both a portrait of place and a study of the people who passed through it—and stayed.
Edition I: December 2022
Expanded edition: December 2023 (+40 pages, revised throughout, includes German insert/booklet)
Publisher: Somedia Buchverlag (under the patronage of the municipality of Klosters — “800 Jahre Klosters 2022”)
Language: English (German insert included in the expanded edition)
Format: 21.8 x 27.6 cm · Hardcover
Extent: 432 pages · 400+ photographs · texts by selected contributors
Concept / photography / text: Fabrizio D’Aloisio
Design: Dario Cantoni (SPOT Agency), St. Moritz
Print: Grafiche Milani, Milan
ISBN: 978-3-907095-62-1 (Edition I) · 978-3-907095-77-5 (Expanded edition)
Availability: In print · Order online
Specifications
Inside the book
A Place Remembered
“In those days, skiing was as much a voyage as a sport, and that appealed to the old man. Imagine growing up dirt poor in Brooklyn before the Great Depression. Imagine landing in Normandy in 1944, and liberating the Dachau concentration camp. Then imagine standing on top of the Gotschna on skis, and with a newly built chalet visible down in the valley.”
“A paradise, even one with sub-zero temperatures, is a dangerous place to be. And even if Klosters didn’t represent a perfect Eden, it was always a Shangri-La, a small world in itself, which lay mostly above the clouds in bright sunshine.”
“Of course, there are people in Klosters in December, but not nearly so many as now in the high season. They are “the perms” – members of the international set who establish themselves as permanent winter (and sometimes summer) residents of this Alpine resort. They form a kind of writers-artists-actors community that gives Klosters a special flavor.”
Highlights
First comprehensive account of Klosters’ “Hollywood on the Rocks” era · Previously unpublished photographs by Robert Capa · Previously unpublished texts by Irwin Shaw · Interview with Peter Knapp · Illustrations by Jacques Charmoz
Photographs by Robert Capa, Slim Aarons, Peter Knapp, René Burri, Burt Glinn, and others. Texts by Irwin Shaw, Flora Lewis, Adam Shaw, Konstantin Arnold.
Starring Slim Aarons, Julie Andrews, Lauren Bacall, Lex Barker, Marisa Berenson, Yul Brynner, Truman Capote, Bing Crosby, Britt Ekland, Peter Sellers, William Faulkner, Mel Ferrer, Greta Garbo, Bettina Graziani, Juliette Gréco, Rex Harrison, Howard Hawks, Audrey Hepburn, Anjelica Huston, John Huston, Deborah Kerr, Gene Kelly, Peter Knapp, Vivien Leigh, Anatole Litvak, Barbara Mullen, David Niven, Suzy Parker, Hans Ruesch, Françoise Sagan, Irwin Shaw, Roger Vadim, Peter Viertel, Salka Viertel, Orson Welles, William Wyler, the British Royal Family and many others.