In 1949, before Flair magazine was born, I went through printing plants and paper mills in Europe, where most of the finest hand-work was then being done. Here I am, in northern Italy, quietly studying paper samples in a fine paper plant (apparently of great interest to a friendly cat). I brought back to the U.S.A. some of the talented people I discovered on the voyage to creative Italian circles, including that then stateless genius, Count Federico Pallavacini.

—Fleur Cowles, 1975