From Versace tomes, to IDEA monographs, and cultural deep dives, that’s one for each day of Christmas
Can fashion people read? The high street isn’t convinced. Traditionally, the fashion section of any major bookshop comprises a (very) sparse bookcase with titles that look as though they’ve been sourced from a carboot sale. Hidden away in the basement or crammed into some far off corner, the love given to these shelves reads as a pitiful allegory for the way in which wider society views the industry. Like in Waterstones Gower Street, where the fashion department doubles as an enclave to the toilets. Where “Art and Architecture” is lined with criticism and the voices of trailblazing tastemakers, “Fashion” is home to Witty Quotes and Wise Words from Coco Chanel and A Beginner’s Guide to Cross Stitch. Don’t judge a book by its cover but when they’re adorned with glitter pink stilettos or the smirk of a mid-aughts TV stylist, you get the impression that just about everyone else does.
Yet the marriage of books and looks has proved a powerful one this year, with the rich bitch teens of Gossip Girl and White Lotus toting Eve Babitz, Elena Ferrante, Kennedy Fraser, and Nietzsche as if they were Chiquitos or Motorcycle bags. It’s a phenomenon which came to an unfortunate head when Emily Ratajowski released a collection of entirely underwhelming essays, which lacked both self awareness and thoughtful critique. The desire to telegraph cultural capital is so widespread, in fact, that people are even faking Tom Ford tomes on TikTok. Perhaps that’s to do authors a disservice, though, given that the past twelve months have seen the publication of brilliant fashion titles like What Artists Wear, The Ten, and behemoth brand bibles from Alexander Fury and Tim Blanks. Below, we round up the best in shop from fat, coffee table tomes, to cult monographs, and chin scratchy, cultural deep dives.
VERSACE CATWALK: THE COMPLETE COLLECTIONS
Written and curated by renowned fashion journalist Tim Blanks, Versace Catwalk: The Complete Collections explores every single offering that the Italian fashion house has ever sent down the runway. Having reviewed Versace shows throughout his career, it was Donatella who asked Blanks to write the book and she even went as far as to say the tome houses the soul of Versace. From Gianni’s early innovations to Donatella’s wielding of celebrity, the title threads the story of the sibling designers through 1200 images and thoughtful commentary.
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD: THE COMPLETE COLLECTIONS
Another tome from Thames and Hudson’s catwalk series is Vivienne Westwood: The Complete Collections, as written by AnOther magazine’s Alexander Fury. Spanning five decades in fashion, the book is a retrospective of the ways in which Vivienne has built a career prodding at the borders of conformity. With biographies written by the designer and her life and creative partner Andreas Kronthaler, Fury celebrates the label’s barnstorming runways while shining a light on all those quieter, underappreciated shows that have contributed to the fashion canon.
TOM FORD 002
Tom Ford’s lavish and hulking Tom Ford 002 is an accompaniment to his career post-Gucci, when he traumatically parted ways from the house in 2004. The second volume of its kind, 444 pages trace the creation of Ford’s eponymous brand through high-octane, sex-slicked photography and opulent runway outings. Beyond the foreword, which was penned by Anna Wintour, Ford regales the past fifteen or so years in his own words. Packed with imagery from Inez & Vinoodh, Nick Knight, Steven Meisel, and Mert & Marcus, the slipcased door stopper is bound to become the centerpiece of Selling Sunset showhomes in the months to come.
MY BEUTYFULL LYFE
Following the release of the 2019 documentary See Know Evil and two IDEA monographs, ArgueSKE and Polaroids, a third title dedicated to Davide Sorrenti arrived this winter. My Beutyfull Lyfe chronicles the work of Sorrenti from 1995-1997 through fashion campaigns, test shoots, tear sheets, and pages taken from his personal diaries – all of which has been edited by his mother, Francesca.
DAZED: 30 YEARS CONFUSED
This year we celebrated our 30th birthday with a Rizzoli coffee book, Dazed: 30 Years Confused. Split into 10 chapters, the book explores our past, present, and future, looking at how early manifestations of Dazed influenced the magazine’s ethos today. From Alexander McQueen and David Bowie’s first official, recorded conversation and the designer’s “Fashion-Able?” cover, readers can discover behind-the-scenes snippets of the magazine, including Courtney Love running into Karl Lagerfeld slightly ahead of her 2009 cover shoot in a swanky Paris hotel, or Gareth Pugh scoring his cover fresh out of graduation.
HOUSE OF GUCCI: A SENSATIONAL STORY
Before Lady Gaga spent 400 years doubling down on her Italo-Slavic drawl, the story of the murderous socialite Patrizia Reggiani and Gucci’s dark history was told by fashion journalist and author Sara Gay Forden in House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed. Having spent two years writing the book, Forden says watching the Ridley Scott film was an “emotional moment”, even if the movie barely scratches the surface of the book’s drama.
LOUIS VUITTON: L’AUDACIEUX
Commissioned by Louis Vuitton to celebrate its 200th birthday, Louis Vuitton: L’audacieux is a fictionalised biography of the fashion house founder, written by Caroline Bongrand. The story follows a young Louis as he leaves his family home and embarks on a trunk-making apprenticeship in Paris. A lively read, Bongrand traces Vuitton’s friendship with the empress of France, his rise into the upper echelons of Parisian society, and the inception of his eponymous label in 1854.
PETER LINDBERGH. AZZEDINE ALAÏA
Be it Yasmin Le Bon striding across the puddled streets of Montmartre with a baguette under her arm and a cig dangling from her lips, or Naomi Campbell laughing on a beachfront in Deauville, Alaïa and Lindbergh’s photography ennobled their subjects with a deft use of silhouette, contour, and light, consecrating the age of the superstar model. This unique, career-spanning kinship is the subject of a recent monograph by Taschen, which brings some of the pair’s most striking imagery to light, with many of the photographs unseen until its publication.
WHAT ARTISTS WEAR
Having spent 20 years as a fashion journalist, for most of his career, Charlie Porter’s writing has been rooted in fantasy, in pieces that have been worn once, by one model, on one catwalk. With What Artists Wear, however, Porter begins to look at how our wardrobes acquire meaning once they leave the runway. Through endless wears and tears, carrying the weight of our worries in stretched knees and sweat patches. As he cycles through the lives of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sarah Lucas, Martine Syms, and Joseph Beuys, Porter’s deep dive is a tender report on the legacies we leave behind and the clothes that accompany us along the way.
Captivate! Fashion Photography from the ’90s
In 1990 Linda Evangelista said: “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” The “we” she was referring to was of course “The Big Six” – a group of supermodels who dominated the fashion landscape of the decade and beyond. Captivate! Fashion Photography from the ’90s is the new book documenting this era. Edited by Claudia Schiffer, it features over 150 images and is accompanied by personal essays from fashion luminaries Carine Roitfeld, Anna Wintour, Edward Enninful, Grace Coddington, Donatella Versace, and Valentino Garavani.
THE TEN
In The Ten: The stories behind the fashion classics, Lauren Cochrane unpicks the enduring appeal of wardrobe staples, questioning how and why certain pieces acquire evergreen ubiquity. The book traces the creation and ascendancy of the white t-shirt, miniskirt, hoodie, jeans, ballet flat, breton top, biker jacket, little black dress, stiletto, and trench, as Cochrane investigates how clothing can reflect, but more so refract, society at large. With interviews from the likes of Martine Rose, the book delves deep into fashion’s relationship with subculture and how, eventually, everything gets swallowed by the mainstream.
FASHION. THE MOMU COLLECTION - ANTWERP
After a three-year renovation, MoMu, Antwerp’s cult fashion museum, has cranked open its doors once more, and it’s full to the brim with work by fashion’s most creative and visionary designers. To accompany the reopening, the revamped museum has released a book showcasing its permanent collection. With an overview of the most important protagonists of Belgian fashion from the 1970s to today, the book features the work of Rei Kawakubo, Raf Simons, Margiela, and Yohji Yamamoto. And you won’t even need to fill in a passenger locator form to enjoy it.