Visual/inspirational fashion books

I love reading other people’s musings on style and fashion, and have a ton of text heavy fashion books, but I just realized I have very few mainly visual ones. I used to collect magazines and refer back to those, but have decluttered 95% of them in recent years, and would love to replace with some inspirational fashion books. Do you have any that you love and recommend?

Here are three of my own favorites (1-3), plus three that I want to check out (4-6)

#1 - Garcon Style by Jonathan Daniel Pryce

#2 - The New Garconne by Nawaz Batliwalla

#3 - Georgia O’Keeffe Living Modern by Wanda M. Corn

#4 - On the Street: Five Decades of Iconic Photography by Bill Cunningham

#5 - On Fashion Photography by Peter Lindbergh

#6 - CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion by Sunita Kumar Nair (out in November)

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8 months ago

Jenni NZ

Veteran

I think I found this one on special somewhere a few years ago, but I really like it- it says who various designers were both influenced by and then influenced. Looks like I have a US and Philippines edition bought in NZ!

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Roberta

Thanks for the wonderful reading ideas!

Allora

Active Member

Nothing to add but just wanted to say that I’m excited to check out the CBK book when it comes out. I just love love love her style!

Suz

(website)

Oh, I don't have any recommendations but I love yours, quietloud! Will follow.

LaPed

That Bill Cunningham book is wonderful! I had a chance to leaf through it in person last month.

I’ll also suggest the Shoichi Aoki magazine compilations, documenting 90s Harajuku in Tokyo. They’re amazing! Titled “Fruits” and “Fresh Fruits” — beautiful Phaidon art books, perfect on a coffee table. Inspirational for anyone interested in photography, not just street style. Pricy, but they make great gifts!

Poppy K

Soho house books are really aesthetically pleasing

quietloud

Jenni, that one looks very interesting, I might have to look for it!

LaPed, oh, I remember the Fruits books! I had the first one, but I think I passed it on to my sister at some point. And I think I might have to pull the trigger on the Bill Cunningham book now

Carol

Two:

French Style--Veronique Vienne
Pretty standard French style advice, with a couple of fresh twists. Why it's great is it came out in 1993, so it has that supermodel-era attitude.

Any photo book by Roy deCarava, 20th-century art photographer extraordinaire. Not directly fashion books, but capture a breathless realism of life in Harlem.

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Sally

I have read lots of different style books over the years, usually I get them from the library and some of them have been quite dated, a lot of them I can't remember the names of. This is one I remember enjoying, mainly for the visual.

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