Fashion Hits the Books: 11 Reads for the Informed Fashion Follower

This year, fashion labels are making the focus of the holidays not just what you’re wearing, but what you’re reading. Just in time to make it onto Christmas gift lists, everyone from designers (Matthew Williamson, Kenzo, Anna Sui) to muses (Isabella Blow, Keith Richards) has a printed tome looking for a place in your fashion library. Here are 10 of the people profiled in or authoring the most notable recent releases:

The Muses

Isabella Blow

An early supporter of Alexander McQueen, the late fashion muse is profiled in two books which were released on the same day (November 9th), sparking a war of words between the two authors. {Fashionista}

Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion by Lauren Goldstein Crowe

List price: $27.99, $18.47 at Amazon

The Business of Fashion recently published part of the book’s Afterword in a two-part excerpt.

Publisher’s Summary: In 2007, the news of Isabella Blow’s suicide at the age of 48 made headlines around the world—but there is more to the story of Isabella than her tragic end.   The key supporter and muse of milliner Philip Treacy and designer Alexander McQueen, Blow was truly more than a muse or patron.  She was a spark, an electrical impulse that set imaginations racing, an individual who pushed others to create their best work.

Her fascination with clothing began early, as did a willingness to wear things—and say things—that would amuse and shock. She began her fashion career in New York City as assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue.  Over time she became famous for her work, yet it wasn’t enough to assuage her devastating feelings of inadequacy. Still, in her darkest moments, even as she began a series of suicide attempts and prolonged hospital stays, Blow retained her wicked sense of humor, making her friends laugh even as they struggled to help.

Blow by Blow: The Story of Isabella Blow by Detmar Blow and Tom Sykes

List price: $30, $19.80 at Amazon

Publisher’s Summary: The pages of this book prove Isabella’s aristocratic ancestry to be as colorful as her manner of dress, her childhood as adventurous as it was at times tragic, and her thirty-year career, which began as Anna Wintour’s assistant at Vogue and took in stints as fashion director of Tatler and fashion editor of the Sunday Times Magazine in London, as truly remarkable. But the real power of Blow by Blow lies in its portrayal of a courageous woman who tried passionately and often to escape a legacy of depression that ultimately proved insurmountable. Despite having been subjected to great disappointment and loss throughout her life, Isabella Blow was a consummate nurturer, determined to cultivate creativity wherever she found it.

Keith Richards

The long time rocker, and recent star of Louis Vuitton’s Core Values ad campaign, Richards’ bio will be available online at the Louis Vuitton website, and in Louis Vuitton stores in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Miami. Music and fashion have a long love affair, and though Richards is an unlikely muse, the hard living star’s book is full of stories including the sex, drugs and rock and roll that inspire designers.

Life by Keith Richards and James Fox

Available for $29.99 (list price) at LouisVuitton.com and $16.18 at Amazon.

New York Times Review: “By turns earnest and wicked, sweet and sarcastic and unsparing, Mr. Richards, now 66, writes with uncommon candor and immediacy. He’s decided that he’s going to tell it as he remembers it, and helped along with notebooks, letters and a diary he once kept, he remembers almost everything. He gives us an indelible, time-capsule feel for the madness that was life on the road with the Stones in the years before and after Altamont; harrowing accounts of his many close shaves and narrow escapes (from the police, prison time, drug hell); and a heap of sharp-edged snapshots of friends and colleagues — most notably, his longtime musical partner and sometime bête noire, Mick Jagger.

The Designers

Anna Sui

Anna Sui by Andrew Bolton with a foreword by Anna Sui, preface by Jack White and introduction by Steven Meisel

List price: $60, $37.80 at Amazon

Publisher’s Summary: Anna Sui’s trendsetting rock-and-roll looks have made her one of this decade’s top five fashion icons (Time). Here, in the first book to cover the entire scope of Sui’s twenty-year career, fans get rare access to the designer’s creative process. This richly visual retrospective celebrates her influence, from her first show that snared the support of supermodels Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Kate Moss to the role she’s played in making the babydoll dress one of fashion’s most iconic silhouettes. With more than 400 photographs from legendary photographers, this exquisite tome with a shimmering foil-stamped cover is essential for all fashionistas.

Kenzo Takada

Kenzo by Antonio Marras and Olivier Saillard with a foreword by Franceso Bonami and contributions from Bradley Quinn and Catherine Orman

List price: $75, $47.25 at Amazon

Publisher’s Summary: An extraordinary collectible, Kenzo creatively presents forty years of the Paris-based fashion house, founded by Japanese designer Kenzo Takada and now in a resurgence under artistic director Antonio Marras. Established in 1970 by Kenzo Takada, who had arrived in Paris from Japan in 1965, Kenzo is one of the great French houses that transformed global fashion in the latter half of the twentieth century. Now under the artistic directorship of Antonio Marras, KENZO has again achieved critical and popular acclaim. Marras draws from the rich vein of Kenzo tradition as it engages the spirit of the new century. Armed with an unmatched vocabulary in prints and textiles, Marras mines both East and West, the present and the past, to create a collection that evokes, reveres, and reinvents the intentions of its founder. The highlights of Takada’s tenure until his retirement in 1999 are also documented here. The first monograph on KENZO, this lavish volume comes in a real fabric cover, available in three different patterns, and with a pop-up that evokes the romantic textiles, envelopes, and paper craft for which the house’s fashion collection invitations are known.  Additional special features include three double-sided double gatefolds, folding out to the equivalent of eight pages, and three accordian gatefolds, folding out to five pages.  This book is truly an art object in and of itself.

Matthew Williamson

Matthew Williamson by Colin McDowell with a foreword by Sienna Miller

List price: $65, $40.95 at Amazon

Publisher’s Summary: A unique insight into one of the most exciting fashion designers working today, revealing the imagination fueling his exuberant creations. Celebrated for his deluxe bohemian chic, Matthew Williamson’s vivacious, color-drenched creations bedecked with exquisite embroidery and beading have made him a favorite with the fashion pack. This stunning volume explores Williamson’s career, from his acclaimed first collection in 1997 to his current status as a multimillion-dollar brand with stores in London and New York and an international celebrity clientele. Lavishly illustrated, this monograph celebrates Williamson’s trademark use of vibrant color and pattern. Editorial images highlighting his collections and iconic pieces, sumptuous photography of his textile designs, and celebrity fashion shoots are shown alongside mood boards, sketches, and scrapbooks revealing his influences and inspirations.