The Trench Book by Assouline

The Trench Book, Assouline 2007, $35, assouline.com

Few pieces of clothing are more evocative than the classic trench coat. They may have had a humble military pedigree, but they have definitely come into their own as a must-have staple in both women and men’s closets. Just name a Film Noir movie, and you will find that both the male and female characters will be stylishly wrapped in a trench at some point, and, of course, we hardly need to mention the scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s when Holly is looking for her cat in the rain… (who hasn’t cried at this moment?) Our favorite publishing house, Assouline, gathered all of these classic trench moments in a gorgeous book from 2007 called The Trench Book.  Written by Nick Foulkes, The Trench Book explores all aspects of the iconography of the trench coat, from the no-nonsense uniform of the detective to the more erotic iterations that were the seed of many a fantasy. We seriously love this book and have given it to many a chic friend as a gift. You can purchase it here.

Cool Fashion Book Alert: Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin Retrospective

Pretty Much Everything, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, $700, taschen.com

There are fashion photographs and there are fashion photographs taken by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. The amazingly talented husband and wife creative team has produced some of the most compelling and arresting editorial images of the past two decades and now true fans of the couple’s work can have a gorgeous retrospective  of their images to flip through.  Titled Pretty Much Everything, the book is a 2-volume collection of 666 (?) photographs from editorials and campaigns complemented by interviews with van Lamsweerde and Matadin. The book is published by Taschen is and is available at taschen.com.  If you have been super, super nice this year, hit up Santa for this…

Cool Fashion Book Alert: Jimmy Choo

Mark your calendars for February 7, 2012. That’s when a new book about Jimmy Choo will hit the shelves. Written by company founder Tamara Mellon, Jimmy Choo is an inside look at one of the most recognizable luxury brands on the planet. Red carpet images and photos from the Choo archives lay the groundwork for a peek inside the company and deep inside the love that celebs and everyday women alike have for their Choos. We are already obsessed with the cover and cannot wait to get this little volume in our hands.

The Market: Assouline Vintage Crate Collection

We spend a lot of real estate at The Black Market talking about and crushing on books. And just like a girl can never have too many shoes or bags, we also believe that there is just no such thing as too many books. It’s Halloween season, which means that in a few more days, you can officially start drafting your holiday wish list, and we think that this will be at the top. We adore Assouline Publishing for their endless inventory of beautiful books about fashion, culture and art, and this collection might have topped anything they have ever done. Called the Assouline Vintage Crate Collection, a wooden box that is meant to resemble a wine crate houses 20 titles from Assouline’s Fashion Memoire collection. Books on Jean Paul Gautier, Balenciaga, The Kennedys and Marie-Antoinette are included. The collection is $500, so make sure to request this from someone that you have not been the least bit naughty to this year. We are kind of freaking out about this. For more info, visit http://www.assouline.com.

Cool Fashion Book Alert: Commander in Chic

Usually, how-to books, especially those relating to fashion and beauty, warrant the side eye from us, but we are definitely looking forward to this new book from former Essence Beauty Director, Mikki Taylor.  Using First Lady Michelle Obama’s enviable fashion choices as inspiration, Commander in Chic provides a primer on how to achieve Obama’s signature high-low, pulled together style. Advice on beauty and hair products as well as achieving optimal mental and physical health is a solid compliment to the fashion tutorial . Commander in Chic is set to be released on November 29th, and we think that it will go a long way towards cementing our First Lady’s legacy as a fashion icon and finally, finally moving First Ladies past the Easter egg-colored pantsuit (we’re looking at you, Hilary).

Cool Fashion Book Alert: Jean Paul Gaultier

We’ve been waiting for this book since the opening of the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit in Montreal earlier this year, and it’s finally coming out next week! Published in conjunction with the exhibit, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk explores the connections between the designer and the worlds of music, film and dance as well as his deep understanding of street culture. Few designers crystallize youth culture the way that Gaultier does, managing to present thoughtful and provocative collections that have kept him at the forefront of the industry for 35 years. This is the first edition dedicated to the work of Gaultier and is edited by the curator of the exhibit, Theirry-Maxime Loriot. We are most looking forward to an essay by Suzy Menkes on Gaultier’s runway shows and the way they reflected society as a whole throughout his career. As you know, Gaultier designed costumes and other pieces for many an A-lister, and this book also features over 50 interviews with some of those that he dressed, including Madonna (of course) and Catherine Deneuve as well as other top industry names like Polly Mellen, Pierre Cardin and Martin Margiela among others. The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is set to be released on October 25.

 

Cool Fashion Book Alert: Celia Birtwell

Several months back we posted a story about the work of British designer Ossie Clark. Part of what made Clark’s ethereal dresses so achingly gorgeous and lyrical was the work of his textile designer wife, Celia Birtwell. Her prints were always sweet and feminine, but never cloying and they look every bit as modern now as they did during the Swinging London period of the 60’s and 70’s in which Birtwell produced her most well-known work.  On Oct 11, a new book about Birtwell will be released, and we cannot wait to buy it. Fans of the English painter David Hockney already know that Birtwell was his muse, and we would certainly have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the sittings that she did with Hockney, just to see who else must have dropped by his studio. The book, entitled Celia Birtwell, chronicles her life and work, including her collaboration with Ossie Clark. We see an eBay session in the near future to see if there are any Birtwell/Clark pieces that we can snap up.

Cool Fashion Book Alert: High Heels

We admit that we have an acute, long-term love/hate relationship with high heels- we love how they make our legs look, hate how they can hobble us and render us helpless when we’ve kept them on a little too long.  But we also just love looking at them, and there is a new book that we are dying to get our hands on- High Heels: Fashion, Femininity & Seduction is a soon-to-be-released book about the power that the high heel has over us all.  Centered around provocative images of towering shoes, High Heels explores the undeniable fetish element of the high heel and their solid place in the history of fashion. The book features images by celebrated fashion photographers such as Guy Bourdin, Bettina Rheims and David LaChapelle, as well as an essay by Valerie Steele (one of our favorite fashion intellectuals) and interviews with Manolo Blahnik and Nicholas Kirkwood by Tim Blanks. High Heels: Fashion, Femininity & Seduction will be released September 30.

 

 

Inspired By: Fashion Illustration Books

"The Beautiful: Illustrations for Fashion and Style", amazon.com

One of the things that is most compelling about the world of fashion is the myriad of ways that mood, atmosphere and attitude can be expressed. Photography is the most immediate medium, with shooters like Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts and Hemut Newton having long since cemented their places as among the most celebrated artists of the 20th Century. But often overlooked by all but the die-hard stylephiles, is fashion illustration.  Artists like Rene Gruau, Antonio Lopez and Jean Cocteau brought a whimsy and lyricism to fashion that is sometimes difficult to fully capture on film.  Here are a few of the most gorgeous fashion illustration books on the shelves. Flipping through them reminds us of why we fell in love with fashion.

"100 Years of Fashion Illustration", amazon.com

"Fashion Illustration: 1930-1970", amazon.com

"Masters of Fashion Illustration", amazon.com

Flashback: Tom Ford Book

As news surfaces that Tom Ford reveals in a recent interview that he never gets hit on by men or women (clearly, these are people with some sort of vision problems…), we thought it would be a good time to revisit an amazingly well-done book about Ford released a few years ago.  Originally meant as a tribute to his career in fashion after he had announced that he would be leaving fashion to pursue other interests, Tom Ford chronicles his work with both Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci, spanning the years 1994-2004.

Tom Ford is generously illustrated, with both color and black and white photos putting a fine point on Ford’s highly stylized version of fashion as viewed through the lens of blatant sex and sensuality. With a foreword written by Anna Wintour, we think that this is an interesting book to flip through again as Ford proceeds with his re-entry into the fashion world.