Fashion Biography

North Korea is one of the most troubled societies on earth. The country's 24 million people live under a violent dictatorship led by a single family, which relentlessly pursues the development of nuclear arms, which periodically incites risky military clashes with the larger, richer, liberal South, and which forces each and every person to play a role in the "theater state" even as it pays little more than lip service to the wellbeing of the overwhelming majority.

In Clothes...And Other Things that Matter, Alexandra Shulman delves into her own life to look at the emotions, ambitions, expectations and meanings behind the way we dress. From the bra to the bikini, the trench coat to trainers, the slip dress to the suit, she explores their meaning in women's lives and how our wardrobes intersect with the larger world - the career ladder, motherhood, romance, sexual identity, ambition, failure, body image and celebrity.

An intimate biography of Richard Avedon, the legendary fashion and portrait photographer who “helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture” (The New York Times) by his longtime collaborator and business partner Norma Stevens and award-winning author Steven M. L. Aronson.

We all know that the best way to study a foreign language is to go to a country where it's spoken, but can the same immersion method be applied to history? How do interactions with antique objects influence perceptions of the modern world?

Long before Tameka Foster Raymond was known for her high-profile marriage and drama-fueled divorce, she lived a vibrant life as a self-made success in the fashion world, curating the wardrobes and images of many of today’s award-winning entertainers. In this honest, sincere, witty, and at times gut-wrenching memoir, Tameka opens up about her childhood influences, coming of age in Oakland, and losing her first love without losing her decorum, dignity, or her ability to dream.

While working together at a Los Angeles boutique, Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor became fast and furious friends over the impossibility of finding the perfect T-shirt. Following their vision of comfortable, fitted T-shirts, they set up shop in Gela’s one-bedroom Hollywood apartment with $200 and one rule: Whatever they did, they both had to be obsessed by it. Pam and Gela eventually sold their company to Liz Claiborne for $50 million, but not before they created a whole new genre of casual clothing that came to define California cool.

In the early 20th century over 200 of New York's most glamorous socialites joined the suffrage movement. Their names - Astor, Belmont, Rockefeller, Tiffany, Vanderbilt, Whitney, and the like - carried enormous public value. These women were the media darlings of their day because of the extravagance of their costume balls and the opulence of the French couture clothes, and they leveraged their social celebrity for political power, turning women's right to vote into a fashionable cause.

Part memoir, part manifesto, NFTs Are a Scam is the story of Bobby Hundreds’s journey into NFTs, Web3, and the Metaverse from 2020 to 2022. Hundreds’s first memoir, This is Not a T-Shirt, told his streetwear brand’s story of community, commerce, and style. Now, he wants to tell the story of when a community itself builds the brand. In NFTs Are a Scam, Hundreds’s shares his thoughts and philosophy around a decentralized digital revolution. Are NFTs a cult or a religion? And who do their followers pray to?

Over his 30-year career at Condé Nast, Nicholas Coleridge has witnessed it all. From the anxieties of the Princess of Wales to the blazing fury of Mohamed Al-Fayed, his story is also the story of the people who populate the glamorous world of glossy magazines. With relish and astonishing candour, he offers the inside scoop on Tina Brown and Anna Wintour, David Bowie and Philip Green, Kate Moss and Beyonce and a surreal weekend away with Bob Geldof and William Hague.

Entrepreneur and influencer Mary Lawless Lee, creator of the popular lifestyle blog Happily Grey, brings her distinctive brand of grit and gratitude to this wonder-filled, photo-rich celebration of life lived in the in-between.

Editor in chief Alexandra Shulman kept a diary of British Vogue's centenary year. And what a year. She reveals the emotional and logistical minefield of producing the 100th anniversary issue (that Duchess of Cambridge cover surprise), organising the star-studded Vogue 100 Gala and working with designers from Victoria Beckham to Karl Lagerfeld and contributors from David Bailey to Alexa Chung, all under the continual scrutiny of a television documentary crew.

When Ellie Goldstein was first diagnosed with Down Syndrome, her mother was soon told that her new-born would amount to nothing. For 21 years and counting, Ellie Goldstein has been defying the odds and overcoming every hardship thrown at her. Told she wouldn't walk, Ellie has danced on mainstages. Told she wouldn't learn, she has gained a college education. And told not to dream, Ellie has gone on to become the first model with Down Syndrome to be photographed for Gucci and continues to change the face of fashion from the inside out in countless international campaigns.

The legendary French designer Coco Chanel was born in 1883. She changed the way women thought about fashion and themselves; her dresses were meant to free women of the corset and allow them to move freely and elegantly. At the dawn of a new century, Chanel stood for a new type of woman. Chanel worked her way up from living in an orphanage to dining with royalty. She personified her own designs.

Dressed For War: The Story of Audrey Withers, Vogue Editor Extraordinaire from the Blitz to the Swinging Sixties is the untold story of our most iconic fashion magazine in its most formative years, in the Second World War. It was an era when wartime exigencies gave its editor, Audrey Withers, the chance to forge an identity for it that went far beyond stylish clothes.

Vogue magazine started, like so many great things do, in the spare room of someone's house. But unlike other such makeshift projects that flare up then fizzle away, Vogue burnt itself onto our cultural consciousness. Today, 128 years later, Vogue spans twenty-two countries, has an international print readership upwards of twelve million, and nets over sixty-seven million monthly online users. Uncontested market leader for a century, it is one of the most recognizable brands in the world and a multi-million dollar money-making machine.

I used to love the rattle and whoosh of my grandma's buttons as they scattered from their Quality Street tin. An inlaid wooden chest the size of a shoe box holds Lynn Knight's button collection. A collection that has been passed down through three generations of women: a chunky '60s-era toggle from a favourite coat, three tiny pearl buttons from her mother's first dress after she was adopted as a baby, a jet button from a time of Victorian mourning. Each button tells a story.

From an early age, there was something different about Tommy and David Nutter. Growing up in an austere apartment above a café catering to truck drivers, both boys seemed destined to lead rather humble lives in postwar London - Tommy as a civil servant, David as a darkroom technician. Yet the strength of their imagination (plus a little help from their friends) transformed them instead into unlikely protagonists of a swinging cultural revolution.

Women today are facing so much uncertainty - about life and the future. The need to pivot is stronger than ever, but many of us feel powerless to change or simply don’t know how to take that essential first step. For Lori Allen, business owner, breast cancer survivor, and star of TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta, these vital life lessons are the inspiration for her new book. Say Yes to What’s Next is more than just a guide for our best tomorrows, it’s the beginning of a life-makeover movement for women of all ages.

For fashion journalist Lauren (“LoLo”) Scruggs, a short flight to look at Christmas lights turned into a nightmare when she was struck by the plane’s spinning propeller blades. As Lauren was rushed to the hospital, fighting for her life, the world watched in shock and horror. Several major surgeries and thousands of prayers later, Lauren was still alive. But she had suffered brain trauma and lost her left hand and left eye. Some thought that this would be the end of everything for her, a beautiful young woman working in an industry focused completely on appearance. They were wrong.

I, Elizabeth Hawes, have sold, stolen, and designed clothes in Paris. I have reported on Paris fashions for newspapers and magazines and department stores, and I've worked with American buyers in Europe.