Following the format of "The Art Book", this volume looks at the fashion world and the people who created and inspired it. The book contains an A-Z guide to the 500 most important names in fashion since the 1860s, including clothes and accessory designers, photographers, models and iconic individuals who instigated or symbolize a fashion movement. Designers represented include Paul Poiret, Christian Dior, Balenciaga, John Galliano, Coco Chanel, Pierre Balmain, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Jeanne Lanvin and Issey Miyake. The book provides a survey of fashion photography with work from Cecil Beaton, David Bailey, Guy Bourdin, Irving Penn, Steven Meisel, Nan Goldin, Eve Arnold, Craig McDean, Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton. The book is arranged alphabetically, and a cross-reference system and glossary explain collaborations and techniques used in fashion.

Reviews

This highly illustrated coffee-table book celebrates 20th-century fashion in style. It is a virtual cavalcade of the most successful names in the fashion industry and highlights a host of designers, models, illustrators, photographers, milliners, tailors, cosmetics and makeup artists, hairdressers, publishers and editors, and fashion icons, including Armani, Avedon, Cartier, Ferragamo, Gucci, Twiggy, Vreeland, and James Dean, to name a few. Alphabetical entries cite contributions to the industry. The biographical information is kept to a bare minimum, and there is no traditional subject index linking similar entries together, although this is partly accomplished by guides at the end of each entry. The book concludes with a glossary of movements, genres, and technical terms, as well as a directory of museums and galleries. This lightweight treatment is reluctantly recommended as a popular culture item.‘Stephen Allan Patrick, East Tennessee State Univ. Lib., Johnson City