Yves Saint Laurent's signature design style is marked by its intertwining of references from the art world with those of popular culture and social revolution. Since its establishment in the 1960s by Saint Laurent himself and his partner, Pierre Berge, the Yves Saint Laurent haute couture house has redefined femininity, creating arguably the most famous - and sexiest - suit for women, 'Le Smoking' suit, as well as the innovative, landmark collections Pop Art, Ballet Russes and Picasso.This retro...
The first authorised biography of eternal legend Elizabeth Taylor. Known for her glamorous beauty, soap-opera personal life and magnetic screen presence, Elizabeth Taylor was the twentieth century’s most famous film star. Including unseen photographs and unread private reflections, this authorised biography is a fascinating and complete portrait worthy of the legend and her legacy. Elizabeth Taylor captures this intelligent, empathetic, tenacious, vola...
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY HARPER’S BAZAAR • In this candid memoir, featuring a foreword by Barbra Streisand, renowned designer Donna Karan shares intimate details about her lonely childhood, her four-plus decades in the fashion industry, her two marriages, motherhood, and her ongoing quest for self-acceptance and spiritual peace. Donna Karan was born into the fashion business—her father was a tailor, and her mother was a showroom model and Seventh Avenue saleswoman—yet Karan d...
What happened to Montgomery Ward, L.S. Ayers, Gimbels, Wanamaker's, and Marshall Fields? And what happened to the Paul Harris Stores? They were all casualties of the retail store battles in which the life expectancy is twenty years or less. Wal-Mart is going strong now but will it have to merge with a rival later like Sears did with K-Mart to survive. Time will tell. Paul Harris Stores brought fashion, comfort, style, and functionality to millions of women in the Midwest. Instead of flying to Ne...
A thorough exploration of Salvatore Ferragamo’s life and work: an inescapable opportunity to analyze the importance of his creativity and entrepreneurial instinct. One hundred years have passed since Salvatore Ferragamo opened his first store, the Hollywood Boot Shop, opposite the recently built Grauman’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. This set the seal on the success he achieved in America, where he had emigrated in 1915. He was perfectly integrated in the film world of those years, as importa...
“I want my clothes to make you smile!”—Patrick Kelly Patrick Kelly (1954–1990) was known for his bold, bright, and joyful fashion creations that resonated in the streets and nightclubs and on the runways of New York, Paris, and beyond. The first American and the first Black designer to be admitted to the governing body of the French fashion industry, Kelly boasted celebrity couture clients including Madonna, Cicely Tyson, and Gloria Steinem. His designs are distinguished by a combination of play...
What Coco Chanel Can Teach You About Fashion (What Icons Can Teach You)
by Caroline Young
If Coco Chanel were to give a masterclass on design, creativity and attitude, what wisdom would she impart? Discover the life, work and legacy of Chanel in this sharply curated biography focusing on artistic spirit. Chanel’s ethos captured the imagination of post-war women, releasing them from the corseted silhouette and changing what we wore forever. But how did Chanel think? How did her experiences shape her creative career? And how was her no-holds-barred attitude reflected in her work? Wha...
"Admiring and ferocious" - France Inter "This first biography, fed by many first-rate witnesses... we laugh, we shudder, we admire." - Elle On the last morning of his life, Karl Lagerfeld's only companion was Sebastien, his bodyguard and right-hand man. The king of fashion insisted on being cremated, along with his universally recognisable 'gear' - the dark glasses and high starched collar that served as a bastion for his secrets. It is only now that witnesses have begun to talk. Thus emerges...
From Charles Frederick Worth to Nicolas Ghesquiere, designers have propelled fashion from an elite craft into a cornerstone of contemporary popular culture. This brilliantly written analysis of the achievements of the 50 greatest names in international fashion explores their lives, both personal and professional, drawing on the latest academic research and on the best of fashion journalism, including the authors' own interviews with designers spanning a 30-year period. The designers' working met...
This book addresses the relationships between fashion, women and power. One of the constants within the book is to question the enduring relationship between women and dress and how these inform and articulate the ways in which women remain represented as either suitable or not for public office and their behaviour is informed through dress when they are in power. The book critiques the interplays between politics, power, class, race and expectation in relation to the everyday practice of gettin...
** A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK **'Fascinating . . . The history of the world through the eye of a needle . . . I recommend this book to anyone' THE SPECTATOR'A charming, absorbing history that takes us on a journey from the silk roads to sportswear, from ruffs to spacesuits . . . I devoured this quietly feminist book' SUNDAY TIMES'Joyful and beautiful' NATURE'Will make you rethink your relationship with fabric' ELLE DECORATIONAll textiles begin with a twist. From colourful 30,000-year old threads...
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The guardian of all style” (The New York Times Magazine) shares stories on life, love, style, and career, from Paris to New York, and inspires readers to cultivate an effortless chic that is all their own. Garance Doré, the voice and vision behind her eponymous blog, has captivated millions of readers worldwide with her fresh and appealing approach to style through storytelling. This gorgeously illustrated book takes readers on a unique narrative journey that ble...
Derided by the establishment for declaring Mick Jagger 'stylish', Janey Ironside's career in the fashion industry was inseparable from her identity. AS Professor of Fashion at the Royal College of Art from 1956 to 1968, she played a role in the 1960s revolution that turned Britain's rag trade into a high-turnover, mass-market industry targeting a new generation of cash-rich youth. Working behind the scenes, she trained a cohort of bright young things, including Ossie Clark, Bill Gibb, Zandra Rho...
'Enjoy it. Share it.' IDRIS ELBA ‘This book is a revelation’ DONATELLA VERSACE 'Edward's journey is a lesson for the culture and future generations to come' NAOMI CAMPBELL ‘Inspiring and fascinating’ BERNARDINE EVARISTO 'Courageously truthful' SALMAN RUSHDIE Edward Enninful has lived an extraordinary life. Here, for the first time, he shares the remarkable, inspiring story of his journey from a childhood bedroom in Ghana overlooking firing squads, to 1990s London – becoming the youngest...
Jeremy Fragrance, the man with the iconic white suit, tells us how he made it to become the world's #1 perfume influencer. Looking back on his upbringing and the various obstacles he had to overcome, he frankly explains what family, faith and discipline always meant for him and how he managed to build his distinctive positive mindset. Starting with the launch of this YouTube account in 2014 and his rapidly growing social media presence, he traces his way into the world of fragrances and to inter...
In the middle of the night on March 11, 1980, the phone rang in Julia Reed’s Georgetown dorm. It was her boss at Newsweek where she was an intern. He told her to get in her car and drive to the Madeira School where she had been a student. Her former headmistress, Jean Harris, had just shot Dr. Herman Tarnower, The Scarsdale Diet Doctor. Julia didn’t flinch. She dressed, drove to Madeira, got the story and her first byline and the new American Gilded Age was off and running. The end of the twent...
'Clothes is the perfect isolation read - clever, emotionally intelligent, revelling in style without making us yearn to shop' - Hannah Betts, The Times'Self-deprecating and stylish, this is sure to become a classic.' - Vanity Fair'A life beyond Moss, mwahs and Manolo Blahniks - by the fashionista that really knows [...] a wry and candid part-memoir, part-fashion history, part-social commentary.' - Mail on SundayChosen as 'book of the week' by the Observer -'Its jacket of bubblegum pink letters o...
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Certain lives are at once so exceptional, and yet so in step with their historical moments, that they illuminate cultural forces far beyond the scope of a single person. Such is the case with Coco Chanel, whose life offers one of the most fascinating tales of the twentieth century—throwing into dramatic relief an era of war, fashion, ardent nationalism, and earth-shaking change—here brilliantly treated, for the first time, with wide-ranging and incisive historical scrutiny....
