Fashion Biography

In the 1980s, Jill Dodd determines that her ticket out of an abusive home is to make it as a top model in Paris. Armed with only her desire for freedom and independence, she embarks on an epic journey that takes her to uncharted territory - the Parisian fashion industry, with all its beautiful glamour and its ugly underbelly of sex, drugs, and excess.

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.

Long before creating Covet by Christos, the world's leading livestreamer of all things luxury, future founder and CEO Christos Garkinos grew up in Detroit as the gay son of Greek immigrants and started working in his parents' diner at the age of four. Seeking a bigger life post-college, Garkinos took a job under Richard Branson in the mid-90's heyday of Virgin Megastores. Beginning to rub shoulders with A-list celebrities, he embarked on a 25-year fashion and media career with many highs and lows.

An exclusive guided tour of the fashion industry - from the inside up.

When Edward Enninful became the first Black editor-in-chief of British Vogue, few in the world of fashion wanted to confront how it failed to represent the world we live in. But Edward, a champion of inclusion throughout his life, rapidly changed that. Now, whether it’s putting first responders, octogenarians or civil rights activists on the cover of Vogue, or championing designers and photographers of colour, Edward Enninful has cemented his status as one of his world’s most important changemakers.

Considered "the world's most popular cult novelist" (The Guardian), Haruki Murakami has written books that have galvanized millions around the world. Many of his fans know about his 10,000-vinyl-record collection, and his obsession with running, but few have heard about a more intimate, and perhaps more unique, passion: his T-shirt-collecting habit.

Le dernier matin, Karl Lagerfeld est mort seulement accompagné de Sébastien, son bodyguard et homme de confiance avec qui il dînait en tête-à-tête presque chaque soir. Lors de la cérémonie funèbre, défilèrent Bernard Arnault et les frères Wertheimer, Caroline de Monaco et Inès de la Fressange, les premières des ateliers de couture Chanel et de jeunes mannequins. L’empereur de la mode avait exigé de disparaître en cendres, avec cette « panoplie » si reconnaissable – lunettes noires et catogan – qui servait de rempart à ses secrets. C’est seulement maintenant que les témoins parlent.

Little black dresses. Fake pearls. Jersey knit. Blazers. Ballet flats. Today - and for nearly the last hundred years - we all see some version of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel every time we pass a woman on the street. But few among us realize that Chanel’s role in the events of the twentieth century was as pervasive as her influence on fashion, or how deeply she absorbed and then brilliantly reimagined the historical currents around her.

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.

In I.M., Isaac Mizrahi offers a poignant, candid, and touching look back on his life so far. Growing up gay in a sheltered Syrian Jewish Orthodox family, Isaac had unique talents that ultimately drew him into fashion and later into celebrity circles that read like a who’s who of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Richard Avedon, Audrey Hepburn, Anna Wintour, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Meryl Streep, and Oprah Winfrey, to name only a few.

Bevy Smith was living what seemed like a glamorous dream as a fashion advertising executive, blazing a lucrative career for herself in the whitewashed magazine world. She jetsetted to Europe for fashion shows, dined and danced at every hot spot, and enjoyed a mighty roster of lovers. So it came as quite a shock to Bevy when one day, after arriving at her luxury hotel in Milan, she collapsed on the Frette bedsheets and sobbed. Years of rolling with the in-crowd had taken its toll. Her satisfaction with work and life had hit rock bottom.

« Je veux être ce qu'il va arriver. » - Coco Chanel Ces quatre syllabes évoquent immédiatement la mode, la femme et Paris ! Gabrielle Chasnel, dite « Coco » est au-delà d'une créatrice de mode géniale qui a révolutionné le vêtement féminin, sans aucun doute la première influenceuse de l'histoire. Cinquante ans après sa disparition dans sa suite de l'Hôtel Ritz, Coco Chanel reste une personnalité inspirante aux quatre coins du monde. Elle n'a pas fait que modifier le regard porté sur le corps féminin.

Fashion is a business of smoke and mirrors, notorious for crushing the souls of most who dare to be part of the industry. Go on a global expedition with New York City-based fashion buyer, strategist, and consultant, Mercedes Gonzalez, as she learns that there is no glamour in fashion and that only cutthroat corporate espionage prevails. From politicking with blood diamond dealers and Russian kingpins to living in indigenous villages, she has relied on her street smarts and fear of her uncle in order to outwit the industry tyrants at their own game.

For Eve, Irene, Betty, and Rosemary, working at the exclusive Heyworth's department store in Cambridge is a dream come true. Once the girls step inside the elegant building, the hardships of their own lives are temporarily forgotten. Serving a variety of customers, from glamorous gypsy queens to royalty and the city's fashionable elite, the store is a place where these young women can forge successful careers under the ever-watchful eye of flamboyant owner Mr Heyworth.

Come ha fatto Miuccia Prada a trasformare il negozio del nonno in centro a Milano in uno dei brand del lusso di maggior successo a livello mondiale...

Before Instagram was an art form, fashion photographers were pop culture royalty. From the postwar covers of Vogue until the triumph of the digital image, the fashion photographer sold not only clothes but ideals of beauty and fantasies of perfect lives. Even when they succumbed to temptation and excess, the very few photographers who rose to the top were artists above all.

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?

A review of the Mary Quant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum London. The audiobook looks at the beginnings of the designer's practice, launched with the Kings Road boutique Bazaar in the 1950s; progressing to Quant's mini skirts and trouser suits in the 1960s, and development of a cosmetic range in the 1970s. Includes quotations from associates and biographical data.

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.

Found in a pillowcase, the fabulous long-lost memoirs of a legendary Hollywood designer - and a genuine Australian original. Orry-Kelly created magic onscreen, from Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon to Some Like It Hot. He won three Oscars for costume design. He dressed all the biggest stars, from Bette Davis to Marilyn Monroe. He was an Australian. Yet few know who Orry-Kelly really was - until now.