English Artist Daniel Lismore is Coffee-Table Candy

Daniel Lismore is a walking piece of art. His florid ensembles--a mix of found objects and fashion--billow from his body like mobile curiosity shops. But in his recent traveling exhibition and its accompanying new book--both titled Be Yourself, Everyone Else Is Already Taken--the English artist has let his creations stand still so that onlookers can gawk at every meticulously layered, extravagantly adorned detail.

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With photography by Colin Douglas Gray and a foreword by Paula Wallace (president of the Savannah College of Art and Design, where the exhibition debuted), Lismore's first tome is at once gothic and kaleidoscopic. Yet despite its lavish depiction of his limitless obsessions, it's just a snapshot--a glimpse of a life almost entirely devoted to outre couture. From peacock plumes to animal tusks, from an ode to geishas to a Warhol homage complete with a soup-can headpiece, the looks in Be Yourself paint Lismore as a marvel who's scoured the earth to dress up his world.

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