The most stylish fashion books to give and receive this Christmas
Even the fashion fan who has everything will find something new to love in one of these fashion books. Because a couture gown may be out of reach for most of us - but a book full of them can feel almost as special.
All About Yves by Catherine ?rmen
Flip to: The glassine envelope of paper dolls mounted on page 13
Best for: Friends planning getaways to Marrakech
Why: Yves Saint Laurent’s design legacy is everywhere, from the ‘le smoking’ tuxedos smart women wear to smart parties, to the peasant dresses we live in all summer long. This book covers all that and much more, with paper dolls and reproductions of letters, sketches and posters that make it a sheer delight. Add it to your reading list before any visit to the new Yves Saint Laurent museums in Marrakech and Paris.
￡35, Laurence King
Pierre Cardin by Jean-Pascale Hesse
Flip to: Cardin muse Hiroko Matsumoto shimmying in an organza cocktail dress on page 88
Best for: Modern furniture aficionados
Why:When a design from 1950-something still looks futuristic, there’s every chance it’s a Pierre Cardin. Along with his clothes, the prolific designer has spent the past 70 years creating cars (the Cadillac Phaeton), aeroplanes, furniture, jewellery, handbags and more. His swoopy, space-age designs still look like nothing else out there. ‘It was always my intention to be different,’ he says, ‘because that is the only way to last.’
￡130, Assouline
Schiaparelli & the Artists by Andre Leon Talley and Donald Albrecht
Flip to:La Femme aux Etoiles, Kees van Dongen’s 1935 illustration, on page 217
Best for: Vintage fashion fans
Why:Elsa Schiaparelli wasn’t just a darling of the Surrealist set; she was an active collaborator with many of the movement’s highest-profile artists. Besides the Shoe Hat and Lobster Dress she created with Salvador Dali, Schiaparelli worked on magazine shoots with Man Ray and Horst P. Horst, commissioned buttons for her couture from Alberto Giacometti and inspired paintings and drawings by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. And she all but invented hot pink -- or, as she would have us call the hue, ‘shocking’.
￡65, Rizzoli
Guy Bourdin: Image Maker by Matthias Harder
Flip to: The visual index of every spread in the back of the book
Best for: Art-school students (and shoe fetishists)
Why:This book is not: safe for work. This book is: packed with models in full-on glamazon mode. Whether they’re striding down a hall in strong-shouldered blazers, dangling from acrobatic hoops in green leotards or laying on the floor in fur coats and high heels, these women appear every inch in charge. Bourdin’s advertising images for French shoe designer Charles Jourdan will make you see shoe adverts in a whole new way.
￡110, Assouline
Fiorucci, edited by David Owen, with a foreword by Sofia Coppola
Flip to:Marc Jacobs’ interview on page 168
Best for: Denim-customising teens
Why: New York’s Fiorucci store was more than just a place to buy the brand’s coveted jeans and crop tops. Marc Jacobs and Sofia Coppola hung out there as teenagers. Keith Haring painted the walls. iD founder Terry Jones designed the imagery. And when Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager opened Studio 54, they asked founder Elio Fiorucci to host the opening party (he booked an up-and-coming downtown singer named Madonna as entertainment). Just in time for the brand’s relaunch after years of dormancy, this zine-like book seems sure to win over a new generation of fans.
￡29.95, Rizzoli
50 stylish Christmas gifts for her
Fashion and Versailles, Laurence Bena?m
Flip to: Dovima in yellow Balmain, page 69
Best for: Francophiles
Why: It’s a good thing the Palace of Versailles is so vast, given the outsized role it plays in the fashion imagination. Versailles has been the birthplace of centuries of fashion innovation: dress codes, pregnancy-concealing dresses and Marie Antoinette’s towering wigs among them. And that’s before the parade of fashion shows and photo shoots that have taken place in its halls and gardens. Flip from pretty page to pretty page with a slice of cake at your elbow for truly multisensory escapism.
￡50, Thames & Hudson
The Story of The Face by Paul Gorman
Flip to: Corinne Day’s ‘The Daisy Age’ shoot starring a young Kate Moss from the July 1990 issue, page 204
Best for: Music fans who still have their idols’ The Face covers in storage
Why: Many of the images that have come to feel emblematic of the 1980s and ‘90s began in The Face. This book includes the cover of Kate Moss grinning in a feather headdress, and so much more - Oasis, Blur, George Michael, the Spice Girls… Relive it all to a soundtrack of “Last Christmas”.
￡34.95, Thames & Hudson
London Uprising, edited by Tania Fares and Sarah Mower
Flip to: The map of designers’ studios on page 38
Best for: Past, present and aspiring fashion students
Why: The definitive resource for British fashion fans. The book contains authoritative interviews with 50 designers working in London today, from fresh-out-of-Central-Saint-Martins strivers to industry titans. It’s the closest thing to a studio tour that you can wrap and put under the tree.
￡69.95, Phaidon
