I was wandering around Amazon yesterday and discovered a handy list that tells you exactly which new or about-to-be-released books on fashion are already their top sellers. Not only does it indicate what’s about to be a hot topic, it also helps fashion book-horders like myself save money (pre-ordering through Amazon can save you as much as 40% off the regular price). Anyway – here are just a few of the current top sellers:
Beaton in Vogue By Josephine Ross
Available: April 1, 2012
Book description: “Cecil Beaton was a man of dazzling charm and style, and his talents were many. At the age of twenty he sent Vogue an out-of focus snap of a college play, and for the next half-century and more he kept readers of the magazine up to date on all the various activities of his career. Condé Nast, the owner of Vogue, convinced Beaton to abandon his pocket Kodak, and his resulting photographic work earned him a place among the great chroniclers of fashion. Witty and inventive, he also designed settings for plays and films—and for himself—and as a writer he was an eloquent champion of stylish living. This book includes articles, drawings, and photographs by Beaton dating from the 1920s to the 1970s. Beaton loved Vogue, and his contributions testify to the wit, imagination, and professionalism that he and the magazine always had in common.”
Knitted, Knotted, Twisted, and Twined: The Jewelry of Mary Lee Hu
By Stefano Catalani, Jeannine Falino, and Janet Koplos
Available: March 1, 2012 (though Amazon seems to be out of stock)
Book description: “Over the past 40 years, Mary Lee Hu has affirmed her distinctive voice in the world of jewelry with her elegant, voluptuous creations. Using wire the way hand weavers use threads, Hu has blazed a trail as both artist and innovator, exploring the nexus between metalsmithing and textile techniques, often through the recovery of historical precedents from an ancient past, and inspired by her innate aspiration to perfection and her stubborn curiosity. Hu’s apparently effortless and graceful creations, resulting from twining, weaving, knotting, and braiding, investigate both the possibilities and limits of wire by melding fiber art and jewelry, structure and pattern, light and line. Knitted, Knotted, Twisted, and Twined features exquisite earrings, rings, brooches, and neckpieces drawn from public and private collections internationally. The book traces the evolution and refinement of Hu’s processes and skill from her earliest experimental pieces in the late 1960s–capturing the spirit of a time when craft and lifestyle were so passionately intertwined–to the confidence and movement of her contemporary creations.”
Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
by Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda
Available: May 29, 2012
Book Description: “Although separated by time, Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli—both Italian, both feminists—share striking affinities in terms of their design strategies and fashion manifestoes. Presented as an intimate “conversation,” Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations aims to tease out formal and conceptual similarities between the two designers. Striking photographs and insightful texts illustrate the parallels between the two, including their preferences for interesting textiles and prints, eccentric color palettes, and a bold and playful approach to styling and accessories. Schiaparelli, in the 1920s through 50s, and Prada, from the late 1980s to today, exploited the narrative possibilities of prints, sought out unconventional textiles, played with ideas of good and bad taste, and manipulated scale for surrealistic outcomes. Contemporary art plays a major role in the work of these inventive women—Schiaparelli in her famous collaborations with Dali and Cocteau, and Prada via her Fondazione Prada. Blending the historic with the contemporary, the catalogue brings the masterworks of both designers together into a grand conversation between the most important women fashion designers to ever emerge from Italy.”
