@rarebooksparis is the Instagram account offering exactly that: rare, out-of-print publications, hard-to-find tomes and some of fashion’s most collectable books, featuring a line-up that may just induce all the heart-eye emojis.
Shrouded in secrecy – the founder, whoever they may be, answered our questions with just a few words – the account is run by an ex-fashion designer who used to work for Maison Margiela, which perhaps explains the desire for anonymity: @rarebooksparis has no IRL store or even a website. Instead, a number of select pages from inside each hand-sourced publication are posted on the @rarebooksparis IG page, accompanied by an email address that customers must contact should they wish to make a purchase. “I work from an apartment in Paris, but it’s not open to the public,” explains the founder.
When it comes to the collectibles that continually generate the most interest (and excitement) amongst its followers, Raf Simons Redux (signed by its cover star Robbie Snelders), La Maison Martin Margiela: (9/4/1615), Paris Collections 1981-2000 by Kazuo Ohishi, Self Service issues 1-10, and Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons Furniture catalogue all rank highly, “but the list goes on and on…”.
Citing their favourite archival fashion moments as their years spent working alongside Martin Margiela, the secretive founder is less certain when it comes to choosing a favourite book. But with recent posts including Gianni Versace Primavera Estate 1994, the highly sought-after catalogue styled by Joe McKenna and produced by Donatella Versace, Phoebe Philo’s visual research diaries that document her time at Céline, Wolfgang Tillmans' Still Life (2002), and the Margiela special of Studio Voice that sent fans into a frenzy when it hit shelves back in July 1998, it’s safe to say that we’d have a hard job selecting ours, too.
@rarebooksparis