STORIA DELLA MODA, STILISTI

Interviste ai più importanti nomi della moda: Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith e Hussein Chalayan; così come grandi nomi internazionali provenienti da Giappone, Italia, Francia e Stati Uniti: Rei Kawakubo di Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Tom Ford, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Donatella Versace, Sonia Rykiel e altri. Le interviste forniscono uno spaccato della vita dei designer, dettagli biografici completi e analisi del modo in cui pensano e lavorano, oltre a registrare il clima culturale in quel momento. Il libro è illustrato con ritratti e scatti di alcuni dei migliori fotografi di moda di oggi - sia più affermati che emergenti - tra cui Robert Wyatt, Juergen Teller, Donald Christie, Julie Sleaford, Mark Aleski, Justin Smith e Jane McLeish.

American Dior contiene disegni dettagliati dalle basi elaborate, immagini della collezione New Look e altro. Con l'introduzione del New look, Dior è diventato l'agente provocatore per eccellenza della moda americana giocando sull'appetito del paese per la novità e per il savoir-faire francese. La collezione ha rivoluzionato l'abito femminile: i suoi disegni erano più voluttuosi con l'uso di tessuti foderati in percalle, corpetti in stile bustier, imbottiture per i fianchi, corsetti e sottoveste a vita di vespa, dando ai suoi modelli una forma molto sinuosa. Dior diceva che il suo cliente avrebbe dovuto essere "la donna più elegante del mondo", che si è rivelata vera, vestendo, tra le altre, un elenco di icone americane come Lauren Bacall, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe ed Elisabeth Taylor.

Casual clothing, swimwear in particular, is strongly associated with the California lifestyle, and the design and manufacture of casual clothing has long been the foundation of California's garment industry. This book explores that industry as it developed in California from the 1930s through the 1970s, with emphasis on clothing and textile designs suffused with the sunshine spirit. Included are fashions from major swimwear companies such as Catalina, Cole, and Rose Marie Reid; sportswear from leaders like Koret and Alice of California; and a wonderful chapter paying tribute to that most western of fabrics, blue denim. More than 330 photographs and advertisements illustrate the colorful, cheerful, and charming nature of vintage casual clothing. Collectors, designers, and fashion historians will appreciate the profiles of California artisans and their influence on fabric technology. Includes price guide and a helpful glossary of fashion and fabric terminology.

Il 21 gennaio 1971, il couturier Yves Saint Laurent ha presentato la sua collezione haute couture Primavera-Estate. Ispirata ai capi degli anni della guerra, la collezione comprendeva abiti corti, scarpe con plateau, spalle squadrate e trucco esagerato. La mostra ha suscitato indignazione tra il pubblico, la critica e la stampa allo stesso modo, guadagnandosi il titolo di "collezione più brutta di Parigi". Tuttavia, i design haute couture della passerella si sono fatti strada sui boulevard, dando piena influenza alla tendenza "retrò" che ha rapidamente conquistato le strade.

This lavisly illustrated book tells the history of Horrockses Fashions, one the most famous postwar British ready-to-wear labels. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, Horrockses’ created designs with a fresh, distinctive look, and were celebrated for their lively floral prints and full-skirted summer dresses, which were popular with women of every background, including the royal family. In addition, they collaborated with contemporary artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi, Alastair Morton, and Graham Sutherland to design textiles. The book includes interviews with many of the people who made, wore, and designed these dresses and reproduces magazine spreads and illustrations from the period.Horrockses maintained an air of exclusivity for the brand with an emphasis on good quality fabrics, especially the finest cotton, with custom-designed patterns and an emphasis on couture styling.  Their fashions are highly collectable today. Horrockses Fashions tells the story of this iconic label and its role in the history of British fashion while also exploring the connections between couture and ready-to-wear fashions in the post-WWII decades.

Jacqueline Groag was probably the most influential textile designer in Britain in the post Second World War era. Although originally Czech, she studied textile and pattern design in Austria in the 1920s. During the late twenties and early thirties she designed textiles for the Wiener Werkstatte in Vienna and subsequently designed and produced unique hand printed lengths of fabrics for many of the leading Parisian fashion houses, including Chanel, Lanvin, Worth, Schiaparelli and Paul Poiret. She was awarded a gold medal for textile design at the Milan Triennale in 1933 and another gold medal for printed textiles at the Paris World Fair in 1937. Jacqueline was not only a serious and highly respected contender in the field of textile and pattern design but, with her husband, the Modernist architect Jacques Groag, was also deeply immersed in the intellectual life of Vienna.In 1938 the sophisticated world of Jacques and Jacqueline was brutally shattered when the Anschluss, the political unification of Austria and Germany, occurred and the German army entered Vienna. Faced with the actuality of the Nazi terror the Groags, who were Jewish, fled to Czechoslovakia and their home city of Prague. After a brief respite they were once more forced to flee in 1939, this time to London. On their arrival in England they were welcomed and championed by leading members of the British design fraternity, amongst whom were Sir Gordon Russell, the doyen of British architects Sir Charles Reilly and Jack Pritchard, founder of the modernist design company, Isokon. Much of the Contemporary style of the textiles and wallpapers shown at the 1951 Festival of Britain were heavily indebted to Jacqueline's influential designs of the 1940s. Many examples of her work were featured prominently at the Festival and from then on she became a major influence on pattern design internationally. She developed a large client group in the United States during the fifties and sixties, amongst whom were Associated American Artists, Hallmark Cards and American Greetings Ohio.In the later 1950s and throughout the 1960s she became increasingly involved with Sir Misha Black and the Design Research Unit (D.R.U.), working on the interiors for boats and planes and trains, particularly the design of textiles and plastic laminates for BOAC and British Rail. One of her last commissions from Misha Black, in the mid-seventies was a distinctive moquette for London Transport, for seating on both buses and tube trains. Her work and influence did not just extend to the large corporations and exclusive couturiers but was familiar to the general public through stores and companies such as John Lewis, Liberty of London, David Whitehead, Edinburgh Weavers, Sandersons, Warerite and Formica. Her remarkable achievement finally received public recognition in 1984 when, at the age of 81, she was made an R.D.I. - a Royal Designer for Industry - the ultimate accolade for any designer in Britain.

This fascinating publication presents the roles two men have played in turning a small workshop in nineteenth-century Paris into one of the most successful and recognized brands in the world. Known for both craftsmanship and must-have high design, Louis Vuitton the luxury house was started by its eponymous founder in 1854. The first half of this publication traces the innovations by Vuitton, who turned the little-known guild profession of emballeur (packer) into the foremost luxury trunk maker in Paris, with a clientele that included in his lifetime the French nobility as well as the elite of a prosperous empire. Prime and never-before-seen examples of Vuitton’s craftsmanship, along with the fashion that went into them, are the highlights of these chapters. The second half of the book examines the role of Marc Jacobs as Louis Vuitton’s creative director (since 1997), who took the Louis Vuitton house into a new era with a series of collaborations with artists and designers—such as Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and Stephen Sprouse—as well as designing a line of highly successful and desired clothing for the company. By examining two divergent but often similar careers one hundred years apart, Louis Vuitton / Marc Jacobs is not only a layered study of the evolution of a luxury brand in the past 150 years but also a celebration of technical and design innovations in the new century.

The definitive book on the legendary photographer's life in New York City, with many never-before-seen images and reminiscences by his closest friends and confidants.   From the 1930s, when he helped revolutionize fashion journalism, through the 1960s, when he launched headlong into the Pop art era, London-based photographer Cecil Beaton brought to New York City his own perspective--aristocratic, sexually ambiguous, and theatrical. At the same time, New York offered Beaton innumerable opportunities to reinvent himself and his career.Cecil Beaton: The New York Years features sketches, costumes, set designs, previously unpublished letters, and over 220 photographs and drawings, many in color and never seen before. This volume documents Beaton's most influential relationships with quintessential figures of the New York art scene, including Greta Garbo, his female confidant and muse, and Andy Warhol. Richly illustrated, Cecil Beaton is the definitive portfolio chronicling Beaton's stunning career in fashion, portraiture, and the performing arts.Beaton in Vogue: Beaton's photography for Condé Nast's Vogue in the 1930s hastened the decline of fashion illustration in favor of today's emphasis on photography. Beaton himself became a celebrity photographer, as famous as his subjects, in the later mold of Richard Avedon and Annie Leibovitz.Beaton and the Stage: After World War II, Beaton appeared on the New York stage as an actor, and he also designed sets and costumes for such musicals as My Fair Lady and Coco and operas Vanessa and La Traviata, both at the Metropolitan Opera. Beaton on New York: Beaton produced many illustrated books on New York City and his tell-all diaries detailed his life among the city's best-known figures. Beaton was also commissioned to produce innumerable photographs of New Yorkers, from Truman Capote to Tom Wolfe.Beaton on Garbo: Greta Garbo was Beaton's closest female friend  She was also his muse, and his photographs captured her in many different scenarios and moods from the mid-1940s, when she ended her Hollywood career and permanently moved to New York.Beaton on Warhol: In 1968, Beaton was advised to photograph a group of young New Yorkers, the most famous of which was Andy Warhol and his Factory. In effect, this photo shoot charted the passing of the torch from Beaton to Warhol, two figures who defined their era's concepts of popular culture, celebrity, and sexual mores.

In 1962, world-class photographer Douglas Kirkland spent three weeks with the most important fashion icon of all time, Coco Chanel. Over the course of this stay, Kirkland photographed Coco with her friends, on the runway, and in the privacy of her homes. Kirkland reveals these never-before-seen photographs in all their vibrancy, shedding new light on one of the world's most enduring, multi-faceted, and bestselling fashion legends of all time.

Legendary designer and artist Vera Neumann (1907–1993) believed in art’s ability to inspire and enrich lives. An innovator and one of the most successful female entrepreneurs of her time, Vera built her company on a radical philosophy: fine art should be accessible to everyone, not just a select few. Known for her iconic images of cheerful flowers, trendy geometrics, and vibrant ladybugs, she believed people should surround themselves with beauty. For the first time, Vera: The Art and Life of an Icon, tells her inspiring story through the art and designs she created. In this volume, richly illustrated with Vera’s original sketches, paintings, and photographs of her worldwide travels, readers are introduced to the amazing woman behind the dynamic designs that continue to inspire and influence art, design, and fashion.

Vero omaggio a Valentin Yudashkin, uno dei più grandi couturier russi, questo libro ripercorre la sua carriera dalla sua prima collezione nel 1987. Notato a Parigi nel 1991, Valentin Yudashkin ha sempre avuto un legame intenso con la Francia, che onora la sua casa all'interno della Union Sewing Chamber. Sontuosamente illustrato, il libro presenta le molte sfaccettature delle sue creazioni. Fotografati con cura, consentono di catturare l'universo del genio del creatore, la cui ispirazione proviene sia dal patrimonio storico della Russia zarista sia dalla sua immaginazione romantica e poetica. Valentin Yudashkin, amante dei materiali e dei colori, ha creato iconiche collezioni di alta moda o prêt-à-porter con nomi evocativi. "Anna Karenina", "Gli impressionisti" o "Giappone" testimoniano la sua curiosità e l'eclettismo delle sue influenze, ma anche e soprattutto la sua immensa padronanza tecnica.

Audrey Hepburn incarna l'eleganza e lo stile e la sua bellezza, fragilità e grazia la distinguono a Hollywood, ma la sua storia la rende ancora più speciale. Dalla povertà e gli umili inizi della Seconda Guerra Mondiale a Gigi a Broadway, è quindi una delle attrici più amate di tutti gli schermi, la vita di Hepburn è illustrata da artisti del calibro di Slim Aarons e Richard Avedon, Bert Hardy, Leonard McCombe e Ralph Morse.

Norman Hartnell (1901-1979) era un genio britannico. Per quasi sessant'anni è stato una personalità di spicco nel mondo della moda. Verso la metà degli anni '30, l'ascesa meteorica di Hartnell alla fama portò Londra a diventare un centro di stile che rivaleggiava con Parigi. Conosciuto per gli abiti da sera glamour, Hartnell ha aumentato i suoi primi successi di design creando una serie di splendidi abiti da sposa per la clientela più giovane. Le sue stravaganze nuziali culminarono nel romantico matrimonio del 1947 tra la regina Elizabetta e il principe Filippo, duca di Edimburgo. Mentre i clienti di Hartnell includevano membri dell'alta classe inglese, nonché le attrici cinematografiche e teatrali più conosciute dell'epoca, fu il suo patrocinio reale che gli assicurò un posto nella storia.

Dames is portrait photography at its most incisive and fun. In Eric Boman's book, a 'Dame' is a woman of attitude and conviction, style and flair, leavened with steely determination. For Dames, Boman has photographed over 100 women, all of whom have made an enduring impression in their respective fields of fashion, society, arts, politics and entertainment. A text by Vanity Fair special correspondent Bob Colacello accompanies Eric Boman's glittering photographs.