Fashion History

Mindy Kaling recommended this book in a Today.com interview.

There are giants in the world of fashion, and then there is Grace Coddington. Grace: A Memoir chronicles a life in Vogue, offers readers a bird?seye view into an influential industry, and paints a stylish portrait of a creative genius at work and play....

From insidious murder weapons to blazeigniting crinolines, clothing has been the cause of death, disease and madness throughout history, by accident and design. Clothing is designed to protect, shield and comfort us, yet lurking amongst seemingly innocuous garments we find hats laced with mercury, frocks laden with arsenic and literally 'dropdead...

Fashion is everchanging, and while some styles mark a dramatic departure from the past, many exhibit subtle differences from year to year that are not always easily identifiable. With overviews of each key period and detailed illustrations for each new style, How to Read a Dress is an authoritative visual guide to women's fashion across five centu...

A solid, hardhitting, and uncompromising journalistic look at the fashion industry.The time when "fashion" was defined by French designers whose clothes could be afforded only by elite has ended. Now designers take their cues from mainstream consumers and creativity is channeled more into massmarketing clothes than into designing them. Indeed, on...

A Washington Post Notable Book of 2015"It was a big deal when American fashion went to Versailles. Who better than Robin Givhan to tell this captivating story" Diane von FurstenbergOn November 28, 1973, the world's social elite gathered at the Palace of Versailles for an international fashion show. By the time the curtain came down on the evenin...

Tom Ford has become one of fashion's great icons. He transformed Gucci from a moribund accessories label into one of the sexiest fashion brands in the world. His designs have increased sales at Gucci tenfold and have helped build the Gucci brand into the luxury goods conglomerate that it is today. Ford brought a hardedged style synonymous with 21s...

More than two decades ago, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen arrived on the fashions scene when the business was in an artistic and economic rut. Both wanted to revolutionize fashion in a way no one had in decades. They shook the establishment out of its bourgeois, minimalist stupor with daring, sexy designs. They turned out landmark collections ...

The true story of style, told through history's fashion pioneersThe Fashion Chronicles by fashion historian Amber Butchard, author of The Fashion of Film, is an exploration of the most fascinating style stories throughout history.The history of fashion is a story of style and power, grace and propaganda. Starting with Eve and her fig leaf via Joa...

Drake presents a sublime and dramatic narrative about the highchic fashion wars of 1970s Paris where two titanic geniuses and rivals, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagefeld, collided and sparked a tumultuous decade....