Gary Chapman is the creator behind the Jazz Age Club.
Gary is a marketing professional who has had varied experience in all aspects of marketing, event planning, PR and online digital exposure. He worked in the book publishing industry for over thirty years focused primarily on non-fiction titles and in various marketing capacities for such companies as Pan Books, Merehurst, Charles Letts, Constable & Robinson, Sutton and The History Press.
In the early 1990s he became fascinated by sugarcraft and cake decorating, invented the technique for recreating fabric out of sugar, wrote books and gave classes in the UK, South Africa, USA and New Zealand and launched the first ever mass market cake decorating magazine.
Gary also has an enduring fascination with the Jazz Age and has been an avid collector of ephemera from the inter-war years, focused largely on fashion, cabaret, silent film, music-hall, dance, theatre and costume design. He has become an expert on 1920s culture and nightlife.
In the Spring of 2010 Gary launched the Jazz Age Club website. ‘I have had a passion about the Jazz Age of the 1920s and 1930s for a long time, especially anything relating to film, stage, cabaret, fashion and art. I wanted to introduce new topics and views not explored elsewhere to bring the period alive in a more diverse way instead of just focusing on the usual suspects such as Al Capone, Fitzgerald, the Bright Young Things and fancy dress parties. Although my main focus is about art, culture and entertainment, the website is intended to become a central resource and open forum for all news, views, reviews and stories about anything relating to the period of the 20s and 30s but in reality will span 1900-1940 which can loosely be described as the Jazz Age. It will also be international in flavour covering both American and European subjects.’
In early 2011, the Jazz Age Club joined the Mary Evans Picture Library (www.maryevans.com), the UK’s leading source for historical imagery. All visual material owned by the Jazz Age Club is now being uploaded for commercial re-use via the Mary Evans Picture Library as the Jazz Age Club Collection.
In 2006 he moved from London to the Cotswolds and his biography about the Dolly Sisters, The Delectable Dollies: Icons of the Jazz Agewas published. After setting up Edditt Publishing in 2012 he has republished The Dolly Sisters and published London’s Hollywood: The Gainsborough Studio in the Silent Years, Dolly Tree: A Dream of Beauty and The Rocky Twins: Norway’s Outrageous Jazz Age Beauties. He also wrote Retro Paris for New Holland Publishers.
He is currently working on various other book projects all with a 1920s theme.
Web Platforms
http://garychapman.wordpress.com
http://fynesharteharrington.wordpress.com
On Facebook
Edditt Publishing
Gary Chapman Cakes
Jazz Age Club
On Twitter
@Edditpub
@GaryChapmanCake
@JazzAgeClub
