An extraordinary monograph created by Christian Louboutin, renowned for his beautifully crafted handmade shoes, in particular his elegantly sexy stilettos. This stunning volume, with a fanciful and intricate pop-up, an elaborate foldout cover, and dramatic still-life photography, evokes the artistry and theatricality of Louboutin's shoe designs.
Celebrated for his vertiginously high stilettos with their signature lacquer-red soles, Louboutin has achieved cult status with celebrities as well as fashionistas. His eclectic and exotic designs, often incorporating feathers, beads, and sequins, are a constant and dramatic presence on the red carpet and in nightclubs and restaurants the world over.
Louboutin's first book, this monograph highlights the extraordinary range of his couture, from his iconic and glamorous creations to his fetishistic pieces, including his collaborations with David Lynch, meant more for the bedroom than the street. New photography captures Louboutin's artistic sensibilities, while an in-depth interview reveals Louboutin's life, travels, and inspirations, presenting a very personal look at the man behind the shoes. <br>A work of art in itself, with a five-piece foldout binding and a pop-up, Christian Louboutin is an enticing and revelatory look at the most important luxury shoe designer of our day.
The book is divided into six chapters. The first chapter covers Louboutin's biography, his start as a designer from his work for Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent to his first boutique in 1992, and his early creations and influences illustrated with many never-seen-before photos from his personal archives; chapter two features the Louboutin boutiques around the world showcasing the varied and extravagant interior designs and displays; chapter three is "20 years of design" and highlights his shoe designs from over the years with all-new still-life photography, as well as editorial art; chapter four features the spectacular interiors of Louboutin's homes in Paris and Luxor, Egypt, and behind-the-scenes shots from his studios and workshops; chapter five focuses on his creative collaborations with David Lynch, of a series called "Fetish," of limited-edition shoes by Louboutin and limited-edition photos by Lynch; chapter six is a complete catalogue raisonne of his work, with photos of all 120 shoe designs.                                  

"Nostalgia in Vogue" celebrates the popular and poignant coming-of-age memoir columns that have been enchanting Vogue readers since 2000. This elegant volume collects a wonderful selection of Vogue's famous "Nostalgia" columns and the stunning photographs that accompanied them. Writers, designers, models, and celebrities share coming-of-age stories based on a rich range of themes from fashion to art, Hollywood, music, childhood, work, and love, each triggered by an extraordinary photograph from Vogue's history. 
With a host of intriguing characters and stories, and images by legendary photographers such as Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Henry Clarke, Helmut Newton, Horst P. Horst, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, "Nostalgia in Vogue" is both a visual treat and a fascinating read. Whether told from the point of view of a budding movie star or a teenager straining to make sense of the sophisticated adult world, each entry offers a unique slice of life sharply evocative of time and place. "Nostalgia in Vogue" is a must for devotees of fashion, pop culture, photography, and literary memoir and reaches across a readership of all ages. Text by Eve Macsweeney with a Foreword by Anna Wintour and essays by Joan Didion, Margaret Atwood, Patti Smith, Edmund White, Karl Lagerfeld, Carly Simon, John Galliano, Ann Packer, Anjelica Huston, Nora Ephron, A. M. Homes, and others.
                                                

Over the past 40 years, Japanese designers have led the way in aligning fashion with art and ideology, as well as addressing identity and social politics through dress. They have demonstrated that both creative and commercial enterprise is possible in today's international fashion industry, and have refused to compromise their ideals, remaining autonomous and independent in their design, business affairs and distribution methods. The inspirational Miyake, Yamamoto and Kawakubo have gained worldwide respect and admiration and have influenced a generation of designers and artists alike. Based on twelve years of research, this book provides a richly detailed and uniquely comprehensive view of the work of these three key designers. It outlines their major contributions and the subsequent impact that their work has had upon the next generation of fashion and textile designers around the world. Designers discussed include: Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, Naoki Takizawa, Dai Fujiwara, Junya Watanabe, Tao Kurihara, Jun Takahashi, Yoshiki Hishinuma, Junichi Arai, Reiko Sudo & the Nuno Corporation, Makiko Minagawa, Hiroshi Matsushita, Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Walter Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and Helmut Lang.

Review: A comprehensive synthesis of the works and careers of the three Japanese designers who revolutionized the Western fashion world... This is a must read for anyone interested in Japanese fashion. -- Yuniya Kawamura, Associate Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology/State University of New York 


Author Biography: Bonnie English is Associate Professor in Art and Design Theory at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.                                            

Amazing Face is the beauty book for women of all ages. Zoe Foster - beauty journalist, author, woman - offers her valuable experience when it comes to skin, face, eyes, lips, hair, hands and nails, body and makeovers. This book is full of honest information and includes photos, illustrations, step-by-step instructions and product suggestions. The design is gorgeous and alluring, the tone is sympathetic and irreverent, and the content is invaluable.

Author Biography: Zoe Foster has published two novels, Air Kisses and Playing the Field, as well as a dating and relationship book, Textbook Romance, (written in conjunction with Hamish Blake).                                      

Through a series of critical and informative chapters covering historical and contemporary theory, "The Fashion Design Reader" explores the multi-faceted nature of fashion design and its associated contexts, processes and methodologies. This colour illustrated book takes a practical look at more advanced approaches to fashion drawing, working with colour media, computer-aided design for fashion, research processes, working with sketchbooks to develop and evaluate creative ideas and building collections. Pattern making and manufacturing processes are also considered in relation to formulating and creating prototype samples in the design studio. Understanding the external fashion market environment and its seasonal nature is considered in relation to professional contexts that include how to interpret and understand a design brief, targeting and preparing a fashion portfolio for an interview and defining career goals for professional employment opportunities.

Author Biography: John Hopkins worked as a womenswear designer at Jaeger and Burberry for over ten years. His teaching career began in the United States, where he served as chair of Fashion at Savannah Colege of Art and Design, before taking up his current position as head of Fashion and Textiles at Winchester School of Art, UK.                                            

"Harper's Bazaar" is a distinguished fashion magazine, revered for its contributions to fashion, photography, and graphic design in the twentieth century. Under the direction of Glenda Bailey, editor-in-chief, and Stephen Gan, creative director, in this century, the magazine has maintained its position as a cultural icon. Bailey is known for her elaborate visual productions: fashion features that use pop culture trends and the adventures of notorious public figures as the backdrop for elaborate narratives. The resulting images, shot by well-known photographers and featuring supermodels and super-celebrities, are both entertaining and beautiful. Their ultimate purpose is to bring the best and most inventive fashion to the widest possible audience. "Harper's Bazaar: 2001-2010" is a collection of more than 300 fashion photographs that chronicle the best high fashion of the twenty-first century. It features: Naomi Campbell races a cheetah in Africa in a photograph by Jean-Paul Goude; Karl Lagerfeld, Valentino, Donatella Versace, and John Galliano choreograph fantasies about their own fashions; Agyness Deyn pays tribute to Michael Jackson, shot by Terry Richardson; Lagerfeld does Courtney Love doing penance for wearing fake Chanel; Tim Burton, David Lynch, and The Simpsons do high fashion; and, Sarah Jessica Parker models Diana Vreeland for Peter Lindburgh. A celebration of fashion, a romp through a riotous and eventful decade, and a banquet of contemporary imagery, "Harper's Bazaar: 2001-2011" is also a glamorous object in itself.

Author Biography: Glenda Bailey has been the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar since 2001. By infusing Bazaar's great tradition of high fashion and innovative art direction with her own irreverent contemporary sensibility, she became a leader in the worldwide fashion establishment. She has won numerous awards over a long career as a magazine editor. She was awarded an OBE in 2008. Stephen Gan is the creative director of Harper's Bazaar and a founder and creative director of the cutting-edge fashion magazine Visionaire. He has also been a fashion editor and photographer, and he has directed advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein and Dior Homme.                                            

Dior is one of the most revered names in fashion, the archetype of the Parisian couture house. Famous for launching the "New Look," Christian Dior's landmark first collection that marked a sea change in women's dress after the Second World War, Dior is known today for its exquisite couture line of dramatic dresses. <br>This book comprises a portfolio of portraits of over one hundred incredible gowns from the entire era of Christian Dior haute couture, including dresses designed by Dior himself. All of the images were shot by Patrick Demarchelier, known for his exquisite fashion portraits that grace the pages of "Vogue, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour," and many other magazines.

Review: ."..far and away the most gorgeous book on the house..." "The""New York Times<br><br>""Dior Couture immortalizes one of the most important and long-lived couture houses in the world and is a book that anyone with an interest in fashion will want for their library." Huffington Post<br><br>."..this is a book to be coveted and treasured." "New York Journal of Books"                                                       

_For Australian teenagers of the 1980s and 90s, Smash Hits magazine provided a fortnightly fix of fun, glamour and pop. It had more fizz than a sherbet bomb, and hundreds of thousands of Australian teenagers were hooked. Pop Life is an insiders' view of the Australian pop lovers' bible, from its bubbly beginnings to digitaldemise. Three former Smash Hits writers and editors take an affectionate and irreverent jaunt down memory lane. And reveal how they, Australia and readers have changed along the way.

This marvellous little book is a distillation of the essence of Turin and Sanchez' acclaimed masterwork "Perfumes: The A - Z Guide". In "Perfumes", Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez reviewed nearly 1,500 fragrances in their witty, irreverent and innovative handbook - separating the divine from the good from the monumentally awful. Here in "The Little Book of Perfumes", the authors choose their 100 greatest fragrances of all time. Some are very famous, some hardly known, for women and men. There is Jicky (1889), unisex coeval of the Eiffel Tower and 'a towering masterpiece'; Chanel's Number 5 (1921), perhaps the world's most famous perfume, 'stretching deliciously like a sleepy panther'; Knize Ten which 'everyone should own because there is only one like it' and White Linen (1978), 'a canonical expression of the American ideal of sex appeal'. This is a perfect gift, a perfect browse.

Review: "'Perfumes is one of the best books I have ever read. It is dazzlingly good' (India Knight, Sunday Times) 'It's a great book because it brilliantly combines technical knowledge with evocative, poetic and often laugh-out-loud-funny prose to provide incisive, vivid and honest criticism of all perfumes (from the 'staggeringly bad' to the 'deeply divine') If you want to open your mind to the intricacies of scent - and enjoy a brilliant, entertaining read along the way - I can't recommend it enough.' (Elle)"

Author Biography: Luca Turin is a scientist with a controversial theory of how we smell. He is the author of The Secret of Scent and the subject of the bestselling Emperor of Scent. Tania Sanchez is a perfume collector and expert, and journalist. They both live in Boston.                                            

Like a trusted and impossibly cool girlfriend you rely on to inspire and surprise you, The Holiday Goddess Handbag Guide reveals the secrets of what women really want to know about four of the world's most fabulous cities: Paris, London, New York and Rome. Born in a handbag from scribbled tips shared between holiday goddesses whose work, love and life adventures scattered them all over the globe, it will take you where few women have been before. Release your inner goddess as you follow Audrey Hepburn's footsteps in Rome, delve into the secret diaries of shopoholics in New York, learn 'chiconomical secrets' in Paris, where to love the nightlife in London, and how to find to-die-for shoes, lustworthy cult local brands, the best vintage markets, heavenly spas or sanctuaries to escape the hustle and bustle, the most original art, the best live music, where to eat, love, and eat some more. Elegantly packaged in red linen, it's as irresistibly chic as a designer handbag and ten times more useful - the must-have accessory for goddesses who love to travel or just enjoy dreaming about it.