20 Captivating Fashion Books to Meet 2020
Mapping out the landscape of current fashion issues, such as sustainability, technology, feminism, or interdisciplinarity, through 20 must read fashion books for the new decade.
Adding to the diversity of book topics we have chosen homages to the two fashion legends we had to say goodbye to this year - Karl Lagerfeld and Peter Lindbergh. Through beautiful book memoires, we get to keep their work, and legacy, alive in our homes just that one bit more.
Being conscious of how we enter the new decade is our responsibility, so let’s make sure we combine our aesthetic sense, our downtime, and our intelligence in the right way. Read more good books!
Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes by Dana Thomas
Sustainability and the Social Fabric Europe’s New Textile Industries by Clio Padovani, Paul Whittaker
Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes by Dana Thomas
Discovering the visionary designers and companies who are propelling the industry toward that more positive future by reclaiming traditional craft and launching cutting-edge sustainable technologies to produce better fashion.
Publisher: Head of Zeus, September 2019
Sustainability and the Social Fabric Europe’s New Textile Industries by Clio Padovani, Paul Whittaker
A unique exploration of the textile industry in Europe from the perspective of social sustainability, shifting the focus from the materiality of textile production to the industry's relationships with the communities from which the products originate.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, September 2017
Clothing Poverty:The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand Clothes by Andrew Brooks
Unfolding Fashion Tech: Pioneers of Bright Futures
Exposing the hidden world of fast fashion and second-hand clothes, the book follows a pair of jeans, taking the reader on a vivid around-the-world tour to reveal how clothes are manufactured and retailed, bringing to light how fast fashion and recycling are interconnected.
Publisher: Zed Books, October 2019
Unfolding Fashion Tech: Pioneers of Bright Futures
The book shows what the future of fashion could look like, according to designers, scientists, industry professionals and theorists in the fashion tech field, uniting their different perspectives on the challenges and exploring alternatives to the plentitude of discarded garments buried in landmasses.
Publisher: Onomatopee, August 2019
“Insert Complicated Title Here” by Virgil Abloh
Beyond the Collaboration: Sterling Ruby, Raf Simons
“Insert Complicated Title Here” by Virgil Abloh
The book unpacks a series of “shortcuts” for cultivating a “personal
design language” according to Abloh, who translated the tools and
techniques of his student days into the world of fashion, product
design, and music through his label Off-White.
Publisher: Sternberg Press (May 2018)
Copublished with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Telling the story of the friendship and creative relationship between artist Sterling Ruby and fashion designer Raf Simons, Beyond the Collaboration is a book tracing the roots of one of the most significant cross-disciplinary unions in fashion today.
Publisher: Sternberg Press (December 2018)
Copublished with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Off the Wall, American Art to Wear by Dilys E. Blum
Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon
A fascinating book about wearable art, as a discrete American movement that mirrored the cultural, political, social, and spiritual concerns of a generation that came of age in the late 1960s and 1970s, and carries on to today.
Publisher: Yale University Press , December 2019
Copublished with the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon
Famous for her extravagant appearance in public, Iris uses Instagram as a platform for communication, and sheds the preconceptions about old age and fashion. A wonderful book giving power to the importance of experience, humour, and love, above anything else.
Publisher: Midas Collection, April 2019
Ornaments and Fashion by Kafka, Broch and Musil by Miriam Annabelle Wray
Klääsch: Zusammenstöße mit Kunst, Mode und anderen Disziplinen von Lisa D.
A book about the literary and cultural perspectives of Fin de Siècle Vienna maps out the connections of Franz Kafka, Robert Musil and Hermann Broch to textile industries, pinpointing the birth of Ornamentalism to fashion rather than architecture.
Publisher: transkript Verlag, Oktober 2019
Klääsch: Zusammenstöße mit Kunst, Mode und anderen Disziplinen by Lisa D.
Fashion designer and fashion activist Lisa D., known in Austria for taking fashion shows further away form the rigid professionalism, and closer to multidisciplinary creativity presents a book about her decade of work in fashion.
Publisher: Maroverlag, Juni 2019
Fashioning Professionals: Identity and Representation at Work in the Creative Industries by Leah Armstrong and Felice McDowell
Women in Design by Charlotte and Clementine Fiell
Bringing together critical reflections, the book reveals how professional identities are continually in a state of fashioning, through style, taste, gender and cultural representation, highlighting moments of friction and flux in the creative labour of the global economy.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, Oktober 2019
Women in Design by Charlotte and Clementine Fiell
Celebrating over a century of female creativity and ingenuity within all areas of design, including fashion, textiles, furniture, lighting, product, automotive, industrial, graphic and interactive as well as architecture, and featuring more than 100 profiles of pioneering women designers
Publisher: Laurence King Publishing, Oktober 2019
Juergen Teller: Handbags
Elfie Semotan: Contradiction
A 600-page book of photographs of handbags depicting the accessory through the lens of Teller, colorful and well lit, but nonetheless as never seen before, demonstrating how Teller has reshaped the field of fashion photography since he first emerged in the 1990s.
Publisher: Steidl, July2019
Elfie Semotan: Contradiction
A book about a female powerhouse who revolutionized fashion and advertising photography. Semotan has mastered the art of photographic storytelling, producing images that resemble film stills, telling a story that goes beyond what can be seen, and creating relationships to icons or art history.
Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag, October 2019
Fashion and Politics by Djurdja Bartlett
Contemporary Muslim Fashions by Jill D'Alessandro and Reina Lewis
The book’s incisive and beautifully illustrated essays provide a timely investigation of an underdeveloped topic through a variety of historical and current formats, presenting new research on the intersection of fashion and politics
Publisher: Yale University Press , August 2019
Contemporary Muslim Fashions- Jill D'Alessandro, Reina Lewis
Presenting Muslim fashion as an essential part of contemporary style, this book offers a fascinating examination of a major segment of the fashion industry, and highlights the ingenuity and creativity of Muslim designers and wearers as they navigate the fashion industry while maintaining their religious and cultural identities.
Publisher: Prestel Verlag, September 2018
Issues, A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines by Vince Aletti
Peter Lindbergh. Dior by Peter Lindbergh and Martin Harrison. New York / Archives
As a showcase of ground-breaking photography of fashion magazines over the last century, Issues is the first survey to explore the history of photography through the lens of fashion magazines, spanning the years 1925 to 2018, though a selection of 100 significant magazine issues from the author’s expansive personal archive.
Publisher: Phaidon Press, May 2019
Peter Lindbergh. Dior by Peter Lindbergh and Martin Harrison.
New York / Archives
This two-volume publication is the last book project of the legendary photographer, and shows the creations from 70 years of DIOR history, showcased at Times Square's rush hour, paying an electrifying homage to the timeless interaction of haute couture and photography.
Publisher: TASCHEN, November 2019
The Sports Shoe: A History from Field to Fashion by Thomas Turner
The New Luxury: Defining the Aspirational in the Age of Hype - HIGHSNOBIETY
The Sports Shoe: A History from Field to Fashion- Thomas Turner
The story of the sports shoe through history, all the way from the Victorian era tennis shoes to Nike Air Max and beyond. This book explores the changing status of popular culture, which took sport-shoes from their niche straight to mainstream fashion consumption.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, February 2019
The New Luxury: Defining the Aspirational in the Age of Hype - HIGHSNOBIETY
A book about the collaborative power of streetwear brands and cult labels, which allowed for the infiltration of urban streetwear into the high ranks of designer circles to become the pillar of 21st century fashion. Read it for a better understanding of how youth-driven fashion trends became the bread and butter of the fashion industry.
Publisher: Die Gestalten Verlag, October 2019
Karl und wie er die Welt sah. Jean-Christophe Napias, Sandrine Gulbenkian
Chanel Catwalk, The Complete Karl Lagerfeld Collections by Patrick Mauriès and Adélia Sabatini
Jean-Christophe Napias, Sandrine Gulbenkian
Karl Lagerfeld didn’t only shape the course of fashion throughout his lifetime, he also lived to tell a story. These books document some of his unforgettable and legendary quotes and his CHANEL creations since 1983 providing insight into the unparalleled life and thinking of the universal genius.
Publisher: Prestel Verlag, February 2020
Chanel Catwalk, The Complete Karl Lagerfeld Collections- Patrick Mauriès, Adélia Sabatini
Publisher: Thames & Hudson, September 2016
