Best Fashion Books: my personal top

“Fashion changes, but style endures”, said Coco Chanel. She’s still right, after all these years. And it’s still time for all of us to learn the important things about fashion, style, trends, the great influencers and trendsetters, about the ways things were done 20 years ago, about the glamourous life of models and fashion sylists and the interesting no-rules way of dressing in streetstyle pictures. Therefore, here’s my top of the best fashion books.

Carine Roitfeld, “Irreverent”. The books gives us an inside view into Roitfeld’s creative thought process and sensibility. I found in the huge book (a real coffee table book) a selection of 250 magazine tear sheets and covers from editorial shoots, memories from early career, notes from photographers, designers, models and celebrities. Karl Lagerfeld once said that if you close your eyes and imagine the ideal French woman, it would be Carine Roitfeld. She is a fashion visionary and a muse.

Grace Coddington, “Grace: A Memoir”. The Fashion director of Vogue US is the redhead fury that stands behind all those spectacular shootings and impossible covers of the most loved magazine in the world. Spotted by everybody as the creative force in the “September Issue” documentary, Grace decided to give us acces to her increddible life. I read the book in one night; I was speechless when I read about her life as a model, the first jobs, the shootings that lasted for a week or two in an island. By the time she began work as a stylist at Vogue in 1968, she had kissed Mick Jagger, spilt wine over Catherine Deneuve’s white Courrèges dress, and was dating the man who would become her first husband, the restaurateur Michael Chow. And the story is even more amazing.

Yvan Rodnic, “A Year in the Life of Face Hunter”. Every city in the world, from Milan to Paris or Tokyo and Beirut has a different view in the face of one of the pioneer of street fashion photographer. The book is a travel diary that chronicles a year-long face-hunting expedition to more that 30 of his favourite fashion cities.

Philip Treacy, “When Philip Met Isabella”. There is no relation stronger than that one between the eccentric hat maker Philip TReacy ad Isabella Blow. And thta’s the spirit of the book, which includes photographs by Steven Meisel, David LaChapelle, Juergen Teller, Donald McPherson and Marlo Testino, among others, of Blow wearing Treacy’s hats.

“Coco Chanel” by Edmonde Charles-Roux. It is the story of the woman who changed the fashion history.

“Fashion Now”. I admit that, every time when I don’t remember some details related to a specific designer or period, “Fashion Now” is the refference. Because in this volume I have the guide to the world’s most important designers, brought to me by my beloved i-D magazine. The book includes more than 160 designer listings from A-Z, including photos of recent work, detailed biographies, and fascinating Q&A interviews in the format for which i-D is famous.

Outfit: jeans Stefanel, shirt vintage, Prada flats, Swatch watch

Photo: dreamingof.net