Librairie Mollat, a large independent bookshop in the centre of Bordeaux, France, became famous online for its "bookface" photos: staff and customers hold up a book so that the face or body on its cover lines up perfectly with their own. The result looks like a single, slightly impossible portrait. The store began posting these pictures on Instagram around 2013, and in 2017 they went viral around the world.
Two classics of the series side by side: a staff member whose face continues the red-lipped profile on a Charlaine Harris cover, and a visitor holding a book so that its carved figure lines up with his own body. The trick depends on finding covers printed at almost life size.
What is Librairie Mollat?
Mollat is one of France's best-known bookshops. Albert Mollat took over the business in 1896, succeeding his cousin, and the family has now run it for five generations; Denis Mollat has been its managing director since 1989. Since 1928 its main shop has stood on rue Porte-Dijeaux in central Bordeaux, and today it covers about 2,500 square metres split into some fifteen sections, with a music shop and a gallery.
News reports in 2017 called Mollat the "first independent bookstore in France". That phrase is about size, not age: it is regularly described as the country's leading independent bookshop. On age, French Wikipedia lists it as the second oldest, after Librairie Privat in Toulouse, founded in 1839.
How the bookface idea works
Bookface is a literary version of "sleeveface", an earlier craze in which people posed with vinyl record sleeves held in front of their heads. The challenge is to find covers with a face or body printed close to real size, then fix the angle, distance and light so the edge of the book almost disappears. A matching shirt, hairstyle or pair of shoes turns a good match into a great one.
At Mollat the models are mostly booksellers, joined by customers and the occasional child. When the series spread in March 2017, outlets such as My Modern Met and Malaysia's The Star reported that the shop's Instagram account had about 21,000 followers. The hashtag #bookfacefriday has since become a common way for libraries and bookshops to share their own versions.
More info: Instagram & So Bad So Good
Faces that continue the cover
The full version of the first picture. The cover belongs to the French edition of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels, the books behind HBO's series True Blood, and the model's red nails match the cover perfectly.
Daphne du Maurier's Ma cousine Rachel, the French edition of My Cousin Rachel (1951). The painted red-haired woman on the cover merges with a real red-haired bookseller in a checked blouse.
L'homme aux yeux gris by the Romanian-born writer Petru Dumitriu, who left Communist Romania for the West in 1960. A man lifts the narrow cover so that the painted eyes and moustache sit over his own face.
Historian Xavier Mauduit's L'homme qui voulait tout on Napoleon, luxury and propaganda. The painted emperor's white breeches continue straight into a real pair of white trousers.
Vise le soleil, the 2015 autobiography of French-Congolese singer and rapper Maître Gims, known for his dark glasses. A standing figure in black makes the fur-hooded cover look full length.
Pauvre chose by Japanese novelist Risa Wataya, who in 2004 became the youngest winner of Japan's Akutagawa Prize, aged 19. The illustrated girl's brown fringe lines up with a real one.
A portrait book on Queen Elizabeth II, with the tiara and pearls on the cover above a real white shirt and belt. Royal portraits are a natural fit because they are framed at head and shoulders.
Chen Zhongshi's Au pays du Cerf blanc, the French edition of White Deer Plain (1993), an epic of rural China that won the Mao Dun Literature Prize. Newspapers singled out this image when the series went viral in 2017.
Another Charlaine Harris title, Vengeance déloyale from her Lily Bard mystery series. The black-and-white cover model rests her chin on her hand just as a real woman behind it might.
Le téléphone sans fil, a children's book whose fox in a red hood sits on top of a man in a red hoodie in the youth section. Picture books are ideal for full-body illusions because their covers are large.
A young bookseller lines up a Charlaine Harris cover showing a mouth with a drop of blood, another nod to the vampire novels that inspired True Blood. A skeleton anatomy book stands on the shelf beside her.
I litigi che fanno crescere by Rita Steininger, an Italian edition of a parenting book about children's quarrels. A cross-armed girl with braids on the cover ends in a pair of real legs and red sneakers.
Film critic Laurent Aknin's Star Wars, une saga, un mythe. The cover's face, with a single red mark, is matched with a toy blaster held at the right angle.
Retour à Ellinghurst by British novelist Clare Clark, whose cover line reads "1918. Le monde a changé." The painted face and a real ear and hair blend into one portrait.
French novelist and film director Ilan Duran Cohen's L'homme à débattre. Here the illusion is a high kick: the cover figure's leg seems to rise into the bookseller's own jeans and trainers.
Pire que la mort, one more Sookie Stackhouse novel, with red roses in front of a lace slip. The bookseller's hair bun sits just above the cover's edge.
Sarah Waters's Caresser le velours, the French edition of Tipping the Velvet (1998), her Victorian novel about a young woman's love affairs in London's music halls. Two people hold the book so that the kissing couple on the cover appear to be them.
A cartoon book called Tchoum held over a smiling man's face, its drawn eyes and moustache completing his own. A rare example where the joke is comic rather than seamless.
Les Sœurs de Napoléon: trois destins italiens, about Elisa, Pauline and Caroline Bonaparte, who became the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Princess Borghese and Queen of Naples. A painted Empire-style gown ends in modern red sandals.
Une femme insoumise by British novelist Janet MacLeod Trotter, matched with a real headscarf. Close-up face covers like this are the easiest to align and the most convincing.
Edna O'Brien's Fille de la campagne, the French edition of The Country Girls (1960), the Irish novel that was banned in Ireland on publication. The cover's cigarette pose is mirrored by a real raised hand.
Full-body illusions and clever props
Yann Moix's Cinquante ans dans la peau de Michael Jackson, published in 2009, the year the singer died. The black fedora and hand on the cover fit neatly onto a man in a black T-shirt.
Coup de sang by Mexican writer Enrique Serna, whose cover shows a classical stone figure. The visitor holds it low, so the sculpture lines up with his own hips for a cheeky, museum-style joke.
A. M. Homes's Puissions-nous être pardonnés, the French edition of May We Be Forgiven, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2013. The cover's leaping man has had his head replaced by a real hand.
Blonde à forte poitrine by French novelist Camille de Peretti. Half of the black-and-white face on the cover becomes half of a real blonde bookseller's head.
Dream box by N. M. Zimmermann, where a man in a white shirt and bow tie holds out his open hand. The bookseller's real white shirt makes the join invisible.
Un super chef en cuisine by Irish food writer and TV cook Donal Skehan. The seated chef's jeans and a real pair of red trainers complete a full-body illusion.
A Denoël title with a girl in a pink wig and a crown on the cover, completed by a real child in a dark dress. Children's and teen covers make some of the most charming pictures in the series.
Shalom Auslander's L'espoir, cette tragédie, the French edition of Hope: A Tragedy (2012). A deer's head in front of a menorah sits on a woman in a denim jacket, far across the room.
François Ier, pouvoir et image, a book from the Bibliothèque nationale de France on the Renaissance king's portraits. A bookseller in a black beret becomes Francis I in the famous portrait attributed to Jean Clouet.
Deux by Irène Némirovsky, the Kyiv-born French novelist who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1942 and whose Suite française was published to acclaim in 2004. A real red flower and black top continue the 1930s portrait.
Mort sans retour, yet another Charlaine Harris cover with the "True Blood" logo. The bookseller's fringe and red nails make this one of the neatest matches.
Corps urbain(s) by French painter Didier Paquignon. A drawn half-face meets a real one, and the difference in age is part of the joke.
The autobiography of Austrian actor Helmut Berger, a star of Luchino Visconti's films such as The Damned and Ludwig. The young Berger on the cover, hat in hand, stands on a real pair of jeans.
Comment ma femme m'a rendu fou by Belgian writer Dimitri Verhulst. A cloud floating where the head should be lands on a smiling bookseller wearing a Mollat lanyard.
A cover for Ver bin ikh! ("Who am I!" in Yiddish) by singer Myriam Fuks, matched to a woman in the same bright pink dress. Mollat's music section gave the team even more covers to play with.
Perles, diamants et merveilles: les bijoux dans l'art, a book on jewellery in painting, with Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665) on the cover. Vermeer's painted eye and pearl blend into a real face and blue jumper.
Salvador Dalí: double image, double vie. The painter's famous upturned moustache sits on a man in a white shirt, a fitting tribute to an artist who loved visual tricks.
Au poil, whose cover model lifts her arms behind her head above a real denim skirt. The book's playful title means both "hairy" and "perfect" in French slang.
Alphabet City by American novelist Eleanor Henderson, set in New York's punk scene. A real raised arm and blue jeans finish the blond figure on the cover, the last illusion in this set.
Why the photos work so well
The joke lands twice. First you see one person; then you notice the edge of the book and realise there are two images, a printed one and a real one. That small double take is the same pleasure as a trompe-l'œil painting.
The series also does quiet work for the shop. Every picture is a book recommendation, often for literary fiction, history or art books that would never get a big advertising campaign. Staff choose the titles, so the photos reflect the shop's range from vampire novels to Vermeer.
If you want to try it at home or in a library, choose a cover with a face at near real size, hold it at arm's length close to the camera, and match the light so the printed and real skin tones look alike. Then take a lot of photos: even small changes in angle make a big difference.
Sources: Photos by Librairie Mollat on Instagram; Wikipédia: Librairie Mollat; My Modern Met, March 2017; The Star, March 2017.
Written by Katerina Papakyriakopoulou
DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS ABOVE. IT IS SPAM AND NOT REAL!
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHAHAHA
ReplyDelete