
Claire Wilcox
Books Every Fashion Designer Should Read
Although I don’t have a good memory, the essence of every book I’ve read remains in me somewhere, inspiring connections or reflections when I least expect it. I’m sure it’s the same with fashion designers. Ideas and visual references are stored away; no gallery or museum visit is ever forgotten. I’d argue that no time is wasted when you are reading either, even if the sky turns dark and the day seems to have nearly gone.
My favorite place for research is the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I discovered it when I was still in school and was amazed to discover that I was allowed to study in the company of some very serious looking scholars. The library is open to anyone, and any fashion designer who can manage to spend some time there will surely be inspired. I simply cannot imagine life without books, from novels to biographies to histories to catalogues.
The following recommendations are just the tip of the iceberg. I would say to aspiring designers (and we meet quite a lot of them at the museum, which after all was set up in the 19th century to inspire creative design), let life, and books, lead you where they will. History is infinitely rich; the present is exciting, and it’s this ever-changing mixture of now and what was that makes fashion so inspiring. A sort of transience-within-permanence. If the result is magnificent clothes or patterns or new combinations of colors, that’s cause for celebration. As Vivienne Westwood said, “You have a better life if you wear impressive clothes.”
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Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture by Robert A.M. Stern
Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture
By Robert A.M. Stern
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2022
Architect, historian, and educator Robert A. M. Stern presents a personal and candid assessment of contemporary architecture and his fifty years of practice.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York by Steven Heller
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: October 2022
An entertaining coming-of-age memoir from Steven Heller, award-winning designer, writer, and former senior art director at the New York Times, that takes readers on a visually inspired look back at being at the center of New York’s youth culture in the 1960s and ’70s.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Buildings in Print: 100 Influential and Inspiring Illustrated Architecture Books by John Hill
Buildings in Print: 100 Influential and Inspiring Illustrated Architecture Books
By John Hill
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
Published: June 2021
This unique volume by the founder of the hugely influential architecture blog A Daily Dose of Architecture showcases the best illustrated architecture books ever published with an informed, personal, and engaging take on what makes the title unique and indispensable.
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