Fashion lovers are in for a treat this year, with so many gorgeously appointed books releasing just in time for the gift giving season (and I’m including gifts bought for yourself here as well!).
I’m so excited to peek behind the scenes of high fashion labels, celebrate models and their style, explore the links between dance and fashion, be inspired by French and street fashion, celebrate Vogue magazine in their 60th year of Australia publishing, and delve into the fascinating history of celebrated Hollywood costume designers.
Read on!
John Galliano for Dior
Photographs by Robert Fairer
A lavish, large-format publication dedicated exclusively to John Galliano’s extraordinary creations for the house of Dior, captured by American Vogue’s photographer Robert Fairer.
The book unfolds chronologically, revisiting the most iconic creations and revealing previously unseen behind-the-scenes moments that capture models, hairdressers, stylists, make-up artists and John Galliano himself at their most creative. Robert Fairer’s stunning and high-energy photographs convey the drama, glamour and wild imagination that defined Galliano’s Dior shows. A treasure trove of inspiration, they make this publication a must-have reference for fashion and photography lovers alike.
Buy it here.
Missoni
by Massimiliano Capella and Mario Boselli
A celebration of the unmistakable Missoni style, whose innovative approach mixes color, pattern, and matter with an extraordinary sense of balance and elegance.
This handsome volume is the only book to present the story behind the remarkable fashion house of Missoni, whose mid-century designs for patterns and textiles have become iconic throughout the world. Rosita and Ottavio Missoni launched their eponymous fashion house in 1953, combining art and fashion to create a unique style recognised all over the world. Since it was established, Missoni has been known for expertly produced, lightweight, delicate knit separates that combine innovative and fractured stripes, plaids, patchworks, ethnic effects, mosaics, zigzags, and flame stitch patterns in vivid and striking colour combinations. With previously unpublished material from both the family and the company archives, this volume is a look into the creative and artistic world of Missoni.
Buy it here.
Prada Catwalk: The Complete Collections
by Susanna Frankel
The first comprehensive overview of Prada’s womenswear collections, from its 1988 debut to today, presented through original catwalk photography.
Founded as a luxury leather goods house in 1913 in Milan, Prada entered the field of fashion when Miuccia Prada took the helm of the family company in 1979. After initially focusing exclusively on accessories, she presented the house’s first fashion collection in 1988. She would soon transform Prada into one of the world’s most influential luxury brands with a deeply personal, sophisticated and subtly subversive approach.
This definitive publication opens with a concise history of the house, followed by a brief biographical profile of Miuccia Prada, before exploring the collections themselves, organised chronologically.
Buy it here.
Supreme Models: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Fashion
by Marcellas Reynolds
To date, there has never been a book devoted exclusively to black models. Supreme Models fills that void, paying tribute to black models past and present: from the first to be featured in catalogs and on magazine covers, like Iman, Beverly Johnson, and Donyale Luna, to the supermodels who reigned in the nineties-Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell.
The book also observes the newest generation of models-Adwoa Aboah, Jourdan Dunn, and Joan Smalls-who are shaking up the fashion industry by speaking out about racial prejudice and becoming social media sensations. Written by celebrity stylist and journalist Marcellas Reynolds, Supreme Models features more than 70 women from the last 60 years. The book is filled with gorgeous photographs of the women, and details their most memorable covers, campaigns, runway shows, and editorials.
Buy it here.
Musings on Fashion & Style
edited by Kate Moss
For lovers of vintage clothing, British supermodel and vintage fashion muse Kate Moss unveils a personally curated selection of her favourite couture and costume pieces from the Museo de la Moda, the world-class fashion museum in Santiago, Chile.
Edited by Kate Moss and fashion curator Lydia Kamitsis, this volume features a stylish selection of one hundred archival pieces from the museum, each charting different fashion trends that have inspired Moss’s personal sartorial style. Organised by fashion theme, from 1920s opera coats to 1960s Swinging London designs, but also including iconic pieces of pop culture, such as Marilyn Monroe’s black dresses and Jimi Hendrix’s Indian tunics, each chapter showcases new images of the museum garments as selected by Moss, accompanied by interesting anecdotes and street-style photography documenting Moss wearing that particular fashion trend. This is a chic volume that will appeal to Moss’s global following and readers passionate about style, fashion history, design, and culture.
Buy it here.
The Style of Movement
by Ken Browar and Deborah Ory,
High fashion meets the best of ballet: this new book features more than sixty of today’s most famous dancers performing in clothes designed by fashion’s biggest names.
From renowned photographers Ken Browar and Deborah Ory, the husband-and-wife team behind The Art of Movement, comes this book for fans of dance and fashion alike; it features today’s greatest dancers wearing couture creations from today’s most celebrated designers, and takes the relationship between fashion and dance as its subject. Leaping, spinning, lifting, and gliding, the astonishing dancers featured in these pages use the movement of their bodies to reflect and magnify the craft and artistry inherent in the clothes they’re wearing.
Buy it here.
Elegance: The Beauty of French Fashion
by Megan Hess
From the courts of Versailles to the cobbled streets of Paris, French fashion has always been the epitome of elegance. Whether it’s Dior’s New Look, Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking jacket or Chanel’s little black dress, the masters of French fashion understand that clothing is more than a craft: it’s an art form.
Megan Hess’s love for French style sparked her career in fashion illustration. In these pages, she unspools the threads of ten legendary designers – Chanel, Dior, Saint Laurent, Lanvin, Givenchy, Chloé, Balmain, Louis Vuitton, Hermès and Celine – to discover the origins of haute couture, prêt-à-porter and everything chic. Accompanied by Megan’s exquisite illustrations of current and archival collections, Elegance: The Beauty of French Fashion tells the story of how France’s iconic fashion houses have influenced the very fabric of design.
Buy it here.
Vogue on Location: People, Places, Portraits
by Vogue Magazine
Have fashion, will travel. That’s the vision behind Vogue on Location, a journey in itself through the many spectacular voyages that the magazine took over the years. Spanning a century, this remarkable book includes dispatches and travel writing by journalistic icons like Jan Morris, Truman Capote, Lee Miller, Lesley Blanch, and Frances FitzGerald, as well as stunning editorials from legendary photographers like Irving Penn, Henry Clarke, Helmut Newton, Arthur Elgort, Mario Testino, Peter Lindbergh, and Annie Leibovitz.
With historic reportage and landmark fashion shoots in far-flung locales like India, Iran, Morocco, Bali, Vogue on Location captures important moments in both travel and fashion history. An essential addition to any Vogue lover’s shelf, Vogue on Location is sure to inspire a sense of fantasy and flight.
Buy it here.
1950s in Vogue: The Jessica Daves Years 1952-1962
by Rebecca C. Tuite
One of only seven editors-in-chief in American Vogue‘s history, Jessica Daves has remained one of fashion’s most enigmatic figures-until now. Diana Vreeland’s direct predecessor in the role, it is Daves who first catapulted the magazine into modernity. A testament to a changing America on every level, Daves’s Vogue was the first to embrace a `high/low’ blend of fashion in its pages and also introduced world-renowned artists, literary greats, and cultural icons into every issue, offering the reader a complete vision of how fashion, interiors, art, architecture, entertaining, literature, and culture were all connected and all contributed to refining and defining personal style.
Profiling icons of American style from John and Jackie Kennedy to Charles and Ray Eames, Daves’s Vogue also featured the couture creations of Dior, Chanel, Givenchy, and Balenciaga. Organised in multifaceted, thematic chapters, 1950s in Vogue features carefully curated photographs, illustrations and page spreads from the Vogue archives (with both iconic and less-familiar images from photographers including William Klein, Irving Penn, Karen Radkai and Erwin Blumenfeld), as well as reproductions of fascinating archival materials and correspondence.
Buy it here.
Adrian: A Lifetime of Movie Glamour, Art and High Fashion
by Leonard Stanley
From ruby slippers to fashion runways, Adrian: A Lifetime of Movie Glamour, Art and High Fashion is a visual celebration of the life and work of the man behind some of the most memorable fashions of Hollywood’s golden age.
This book is a bright and vivacious look at the fashion, art and homes of one of the most celebrated fashion designers of the twentieth century. Adrian (1903-1959) designed costumes for over 150 Hollywood productions, including fabulous gowns worn by such iconic actresses as Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Katharine Hepburn. He then went on to found one of the most popular and influential fashion labels of the mid-twentieth century, Adrian, Ltd. He had a passion for art and interior design, as seen in his impeccably decorated homes, which he shared with his wife, Hollywood movie star Janet Gaynor, and his personal paintings and sketches.
Buy it here.
American Goddess: Jean Patchett
by Robert & Lois Lilly
Jean Patchett was both model and muse, a famous face from New York’s vibrant mid-century popular culture and the most successful fashion model of her time.
American Goddess: Jean Patchett will define Patchett’s career in a biographical essay and explore its scope in 120 editorial and advertising images from Vogue, Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar–some iconic, some personal and some that have never been seen before. It’s a unique look at a model who was much more than a mannequin, and a rare collection of some extraordinary fashion images that explore her unique appeal.
Buy it here.
Read an extract from KHA / Kerry Hill Architects: Works and Projects 
Colour, joy and timeless designs: Behind the scenes at Marimekko 
Everything Robyn Lea learned from the creative women in A Room of Her Own
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