Decorative Arts

In February 2011 John Galliano, the lauded head of Christian Dior, imploded with a drunken, anti-Semitic public tirade. Exactly a year earlier, celebrated designer Alexander McQueen took his own life three weeks before his women's wear show. Both were casualties of the war between art and commerce that has raged within fashion for the last two decades.

Coco Chanel created the look of the modern woman and was the high priestess of couture. She believed in simplicity, and elegance, and freed women from the tyranny of fashion. She inspired women to take off their bone corsets and cut their hair. She used ordinary jersey as couture fabric, elevated the waistline, and created bell-bottom trousers, trench coats, and turtleneck sweaters. In the 1920s, when Chanel employed more than 2,000 people in her workrooms, she had amassed a personal fortune of $15 million and went on to create an empire.

Karl Lagerfeld stylized himself into a living logo and a myth of the fashion world. In Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Fashion, journalist Alfons Kaiser, who knew Lagerfeld personally for many years, introduces listeners to the public and private life of the charismatic fashion designer. Kaiser explores the many eras of Lagerfeld’s life: the youthful outsider in the north German flatlands; the urbane genius in Paris; the tireless draftsman; the enthusiastic photographer; the passionate book collector; and the disciplined Prussian workaholic.

Christian Dior's career, a veritable fairy tale, is set in a rich tapestry of Paris cultural life before, during, and after the war. Much of Dior's daily inspiration emanated from the world of the intellectual and artistic elite, in which he moved with such people as Erik Satie, Francis Poulenc, Henry Sauguet, Jean Cocteau, and Raoul Dufy.

Eighty-six-year-old Betty Halbreich is a true original. A tough broad who could have stepped straight out of Stephen Sondheim's repertoire, she has spent nearly forty years as the legendary personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman, where she works with socialites, stars, and ordinary women off the street. She has helped many find their true selves through clothes, frank advice, and her own brand of wisdom. She is trusted by the most discriminating persons - including Hollywood's top stylists - to tell them what looks best.

Take a peek inside the heads of some of the world's greatest living graphic designers. How do they think, how do they connect to others, what special skills do they have? In honest and revealing interviews, 19 designers, including Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Beirut, David Carson, and Milton Glaser, share their approaches, processes, opinions, and thoughts about their work with noted brand designer Debbie Millman. The internet radio talk host of Design Matters, Millman persuades the greatest graphic designers of our time to speak frankly and openly about their work.

Unlock the power of ChatGPT and DALL·E to create passive income and live on your terms. Whether you're looking to earn extra money, achieve financial independence, or explore new opportunities, this guide shows you how to succeed, even with no prior AI experience.

Many of us are aware of the ethical minefield that is fast fashion: the dodgy labor practices, the lax environmental standards, and the mountains of waste piling up on the shores of developing countries. But have you stopped to consider the dangerous effects your clothes are having on your own health? Award-winning journalist Alden Wicker breaks open a story hiding in plain sight: the unregulated toxic chemicals that are likely in your wardrobe right now, how they’re harming you, and what you can do about it.

Una reflexión sobre nuestras elecciones a la hora de vestir. Una propuesta consciente e imaginativa ante la voracidad consumista. El título La moda justa responde a una doble acepción. La primera se refiere a tener en el armario la cantidad justa de ropa, la suficiente, la proporcionada. A huir de la voracidad. La segunda habla de elegir lo íntegro, lo producido en un contexto digno, en formas con las que nadie salga perdiendo.

The story of The Hundreds and the precepts that made it an iconic streetwear brand. The creative force behind the brand, Bobby Kim, a.k.a. Bobby Hundreds, has emerged as a prominent face and voice in streetwear. In telling the story of his formative years, he reminds us that The Hundreds was started by outsiders; and this is truly the story of streetwear culture.

Designer, activist, and educator Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller is legendary for her decades of scholarship and advocacy, and as a touchstone and conscience for the design profession. In HERE: Where the Black Designers Are, Holmes-Miller documents the history of—and answers to—the question she has been asking for decades: “Where are the Black designers?” Holmes-Miller explores this essential question through the lens of her own development as a designer and leader, beginning with her own family and its rich multiethnic history.

Dawnn Karen is a pioneer in the field of fashion psychology, and she has spent years studying the relationship between attire and attitude. In Dress Your Best Life she goes far beyond well-known makeover advice, pushing you to ask yourself: Are my clothing choices hurting me or helping me to achieve my life goals? Her book will help you discover your unique style story, become a smarter shopper, use color to your advantage, match moods to clothing choices, and embrace new or different standards of beauty.

With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time.

One of the most influential, admired, and innovative women of our time: fashion designer, philanthropist, wife, mother, and grandmother, Diane von Furstenberg shares stories about becoming the woman she wanted to be. Diane von Furstenberg started out with a suitcase full of jersey dresses and an idea of who she wanted to be - in her words, "the kind of woman who is independent and who doesn’t rely on a man to pay her bills."

A book unlike any other, Women in Clothes is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities - famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old - on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives. It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than 50 questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style.

He's been called "America's greatest living tailor" and "the most interesting man in the world." Now, for the first time, Holocaust survivor Martin Greenfield tells his whole, incredible life story. Taken from his Czechoslovakian home at age 15 and transported to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz with his family, Greenfield came face-to-face with "Angel of Death" Dr. Joseph Mengele and was divided forever from his parents, sisters, and baby brother. In haunting, powerful prose, Greenfield remembers his desperation and fear as a teenager alone in the death camp.

With $1,500 and no business experience, Mel and Patricia Ziegler turned a wild idea into a company that would become the international retail colossus Banana Republic. Reimagining military surplus as safari and expedition wear, the former journalist and artist created a world that captured the zeitgeist for a generation and spoke to the creativity, adventure, and independence in everyone.

Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had nothing left to lose. After surviving incarceration and forced incestuous marriage during the worst violence of the French Revolution of 1789, they dared sartorial revolt.

Once upon a time, a no-frills J.Crew rollneck sweater held an almost mystical power—or at least it felt that way. The story of J.Crew is the story of the original “lifestyle brand,” whose evolution charts a sea change in the way we dress, the way we shop, and who we aspire to be over the past four decades—all told through iconic clothes and the most riveting characters imaginable.

Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We’re rebelling against technology that’s too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte “read me” manuals. The iPod’s clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the simplicity paradox: we want something that’s simple and easy to use, but also does all the complex things we might ever want it to do.