I don’t remember a time I didn’t have books in my life. I was a veritable bookworm as a kid. I got my first prescription glasses at age 6 and will read anything when I’m bored, even shampoo bottles in the shower (maybe that’s where my fascination of type and print stems from). Even for work I’ve always preferred print over web and although I enjoy digital work there’s nothing like holding a freshly printed copy of something you’ve played a part in creating..
Over the years I’ve bought and collected quite a few ‘coffee table’ books, which I buy both for the content and the way it was designed, printed and bound. I’ll confess that I’ve never read any of them from cover to cover – to me they’re more for drawing inspiration from when I hit a wall, or to just enjoy the beautifully curated pages with a coffee on rainy days..
This week’s Friday Five is dedicated to the books that I would love to add to my collection:
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
This book with it’s old-school lenticular cover that flashes between the designer’s face and a chrome skull used to amazing effect was originally published to coincide with an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I read somewhere that it was sold out and had to be reprinted; a testament perhaps to the rare talent of this four-time British Designer of the Year Award winner that gave us so much in the short span of his life and career.
Kate Moss by Mario Testino
Kate Moss is one of my all-time favourite models, and I suspect that quite a lot of you feel that way about her. In this book Mario Testino, who is arguably one of the greatest fashion photographers of his generation, shares his images of her over the span of two decades.. some of which are from his personal archive and published here for the first time. I can’t wait to get my hands on what is possibly the best published collaboration this year from two extraordinary style icons.
Helmut Newton Polaroids
This book is a collection of some of Helmut Newton’s test Polaroids, another iconic photographer who shot to fame in the 70s and known for his love of shooting outside of a studio and his creative style of photography. I think this collection of his test Polaroids would be an interesting narration of his artistry and a great study of earlier photography processes (in using these Polaroids to test lighting/composition set ups before taking the shot on film) which has now sadly become obsolete in the face of digital photography.
Postcards from the edge of the catwalk
Another eye-candy, this time a collection of photographs from acclaimed fashion journalist Iain R Webb who has been taking them from the front-row seats of New York, London, Paris and Milan catwalks for the last 30 years. A fabulous insider documentation of the world of high fashion, the one-off performance art nature of catwalk shows and the people that attend them that is usually reserved for a select audience.
Carine Riotfeld: Irreverent
I was debating if I should include this book – I had a hard time selecting the fifth book from a few more that I had shortlisted, including The Selby Is in Your Place by Todd Selby (which I’d wanted for ages as I’m a huge fan of The Selby), Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, Marc Jacobs by Bridget Foley and the book dedicated to the beautiful Monica Bellucci – but in the end the dedicated visual history of the former editor-in-chief of French Vogue won out. The 368-page book includes not only photographs from her probably inexhaustible archives, but also selected tear sheets, covers and editorial shoots and advertising campaigns that she’s styled, from which the promise of an insight to her fearless persona, style sensibilities and creative processes made my choice easy.
Last but not least, have a fabulous Christmas, wherever you are! x
