By Meghan Edwards
Culled from the numerous fashion-themed books due for release this fall, our top three picks.
Honoring a Visionary
Diana Vreeland’s career was as original and colorful as “The Divine Miss V” herself: the young socialite landed her first job in 1936 when the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar saw her dancing at the St. Regis. In 1962, Alexander Liberman lured her over to Vogue, where she served as editor in chief until she was fired in 1971. Within a year, she was tapped to serve as special consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute where she curated annual exhibitions that drew almost one million visitors a year. ”She was and remains the only genius fashion editor,” Richard Avedon, the photographer, told the New York Times on her death in 1989. Lisa Immodino Vreeland, wife of Vreeland’s grandson, records all this and more in n Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, a lush book with 350 illustrations of magazine layouts, iconic photographs of American tastemakers and the styles they made famous. A documentary film of the same title, directed by Lisa, will debut at the Venice Film Festival on September 3. (Watch for the likes of Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein and Anjelica Huston, just to name a few.) A traveling exhibition on Vreeland opens at Venice’s Fortuny Museum in March $55; Abrams, available through Amazon.
Mixed Media
Louis Vuitton’s approach to branding has redefined our expectations towards everything from accessory design to fashion interiors and city streetscapes. The name conjures up the very essence of luxury, yet the label’s cutting-edge architecture, playful interior design, and the presence of Vuitton’s international stores are a separate force to be reckoned with, one that’s given welcome limelight in Louis Vuitton Architecture and Interiors. Mohsen Mostafavi, Frédéric Edelmann, Ian Luna, and Rafael Magrou explore the brand’s innovative structures via interviews with the architects and designers who created them such as Peter Marino and Zaha Hadid. Fashion, interior design, and architecture merge into their own genre: a fusion of fantasy and innovation that more than deserves its own sumptuous tome. $85; Rizzoli New York, pre-order through Amazon.
Family Matters
One of fashion photographer Brian Duffy’s most famous shots appears on the cover of David Bowie’s album Aladdin Sane. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of “The Terrible Three,” the British press’s name for Duffy, David Bailey and Terence Donovan. The trio revolutionized photography by rejecting traditional 1950s portraiture and pushing their own star status as much as that of the models and celebrities they captured on film, including Jean Shrimpton, Sidney Poitier, Nina Simone, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Charlton Heston. Brian’s son Chris Duffy has written Duffy: In His Own Words a 208-page tribute that includes rare photographs from the archives of French Elle and British Vogue. (Brian Duffy father notoriously burned many precious negatives in 1979, making these photographs extremely rare.) $85; ACC Editions, available through Amazon.
