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V and A Publishing
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This lavish book focuses on Parisian and British couture between 1947 and 1957, a decade that Christian Dior described as fashion's 'golden age'. Dior's 'New Look' collection of 1947 shocked and delighted the fashion world, creating a style that symbolised a new femininity. The full skirts and hour glass silhouettes were considered highly decadent, synonymous with luxury and extravagance, in marked contrast to the austerity of the war years. Nevertheless, the 'New Look' caught the public imagination and ushered in a period of remarkable creativity. The Golden Age of Couture features stunning gowns and exquisite tailoring from designers such as Balenciaga, Balmain, Givenchy, and Dior as well as evocative photographs by the likes of Richard Avedon and Cecil Beaton. |
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Published to accompany a headline exhibition at the V&A, this book is the definitive celebration of the extraordinary photographic career of Horst P. Horst (1906 — 99). One of Vogue's most prolific and creative contributors, Horst worked in Paris and New York, photographing fashions by leading designers and making portraits of the century's stars. His important work made outside the realms of fashion photography is also included here. Horst excelled at nude studies and still-life photography, fusing Hellenic and Surrealist motifs and drawing inspiration from artists such as Salvador Dali. He captured the exquisite simplicity of natural forms — plants, shells and stones — transforming them into abstract kaleidoscopic collages. His little-known travel photographs reveal his fascination with ancient cultures, landscapes and architecture and, in later years, Horst photographed some of the world's most beautiful homes for Vogue and House & Garden. His work epitomizes the interconnections between art, fashion and high society. Today, Horst's photographs continue to inspire art directors and photographers, and he ranks alongside Irving Penn and Richard Avedon as one of the great masters of twentieth-century photography. Accompanies the V&A exhibition Horst: Photographer of Style, 6 September 2014 to 4 January 2015. |
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Throughout the eighteenth century, France was a place of intense scientific enquiry and innovative research and one of the most exciting discoveries of the period was the successful manufacture of porcelain. Known as 'white gold', porcelain was produced for use in all aspects of fashionable public and private life; from banquets to boudoirs, from tea drinking to the toilette. Of all the factories in France, the most renowned was the Royal Porcelain Manufacture at Sevres. The protection of Louis XV and the patronage of his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, drew to Sevres the best alchemists, designers and artists in Europe. The porcelain they produced was unequalled in quality, design and decoration. This book explores the V&A's dazzling collection of French porcelain. |
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This delightful colouring book brings one of the V&A's favourite collections into your home. Drawn by Emily Sutton, illustrator of the best-selling Clara Button books, each page is based on a dolls' house from the V&A Museum of Childhood and is ready for you to personalize. The book is a journey through the rooms of a perfect dolls' house, from front door and reception to bedroom, via toy room, bathroom and pantry, and there is plenty to explore and make your own. Designed to be by turn charming, witty and fun, this is a perfect present and a fantastic souvenir. |
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Chinese ceramics are among the most widely admired and collected in the world. From elegant Song celadons to decorative Ming vases and colourful Qing famille rose, ceramics produced in China have influenced taste and daily life globally. This new design history draws on the V&A's comprehensive collection to look at the production, consumption, aesthetics and transfer of Chinese ceramics. Stunning new photography illustrates over 200 pieces, including previously unpublished objects. It also explores ceramics made in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from Republican period porcelain to propaganda ware and studio pottery, a first for any survey history of the subject. |
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The Art Nouveau movement overlapped with late Arts and Crafts in the 1890s and early modernism in the 1910s, combining the exquisite workmanship and natural forms of the former with the innovative materials, forms and practices associated with the latter. Art Nouveau Fashion provides a fascinating introduction to the style, defining it, and placing it in design history by focusing on a number of important designers — Worth, Lucile, Paquin, Poiret — and key topics, such as clients and artists, jewellery and accessories, and advertising. Art Nouveau fashion questioned conventional gender norms with daring flamboyance, presenting women in suits, influenced by tailored menswear, for the street and overtly seductive lingerie for the boudoir. Fashionable corsets manipulated female bodies into increasingly artificial forms, while advertising seduced consumers with images of scantily clad women. The movement's radicalism and openness to diverse design influences directly influenced the counter-culture of the late 1960s, inspiring boutiques in London's fashionable Carnaby Street and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. Art Nouveau fashion continues to resonate today — and this book presents it with a wealth of unseen images and historic sources. |
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'A sumptuous illustrated catalog.' Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune Serge Diaghilev (1872 — 1929) was an extraordinarily gifted impresario, curator, director and animator of the arts. He was perfectly at home driving the wave of creative energy that pushed theatrical performance to the cutting edge of cultural activity in the early twentieth century. A roll call of the Ballets Russes' collaborators and circle bears witness to their impact on modernism and later twentieth-century art; Picasso, Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Bakst, Goncharova, Matisse, Chanel, Prokofiev, Man Ray and Cocteau all worked with Diaghilev — and their work is discussed and illustrated here. This beautiful book draws on new research to explore Diaghilev's life, work and cultural milieu. It pulls together the music, pictures, costumes, archives and art of the Ballets Russes to illustrate Diaghilev's working process, accomplishments and society. |
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Fashion is a big bubble, and sometimes I feel like popping it. Alexander McQueen, 2009 This definitive publication on Alexander McQueen (1969 — 2010) invites you into the creative mind of one of Britain's most brilliant, daring and provocative designers. Accompanying the V&A's landmark exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, this comprehensive catalogue features 28 ground-breaking essays from expert fashion commentators and cultural scholars which examine the richness and complexity of McQueen's visionary fashion. The publication includes over 440 striking images, from intimate backstage portraits and editorials by leading fashion photographers to previously unpublished sketches and research boards from the McQueen archive. At the centre of the book is a Cabinet of Curiosities gatefold with a specially commissioned photo shoot that showcases McQueen's breath-taking attention to detail. The book closes with an encyclopaedic survey of all of McQueen's London collections, from his 1992 MA graduate collection to his final collection, posthumously presented in March 2010. |
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An academically rigorous and beautiful new publication on a crucial chapter in fashion history London Couture is the first book to examine, in detail, the luxurious garments produced by the rarefied London couture industry — from lavish ballgowns to sharply tailored suits and spectacular court dress — as well as the designers who conceived them, their clients and the prestigious publications that disseminated and promoted the 'London Look' to an international audience. Expert authors from around the world have delved into museum collections, as well as the archives of prestigious designers, textile suppliers and fashionable journals, to bring together this pioneering study of the London couture houses of the early to midtwentieth century, renowned for their superb craftsmanship and attention to detail. The full breadth of London's offering is examined, from royal favourite Norman Hartnell to pioneer Charles James, and prestigious houses such as Lucile, Worth and Hardy Amies. The ancillary dressmaking trades in London are also considered, as are the international markets for London couture, and the impact of royal dress on high-end fashion. A wealth of visual material supports the extensive, original research — from beautiful features by celebrated photographer Norman Parkinson to the elegant illustrations of Francis Marshall. Previously unseen garments are illustrated throughout the book, alongside historical photography that documents the houses of the great designers, their favoured fabrics and their most glamorous clients, including Queen Elizabeth II, Margot Fonteyn, and many stars of stage and screen. |
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Modern Fashion in Detail explores the creative genius of couturiers from Balenciaga to Vivienne Westwood through the detail of their creations. The book is split into seven sections: seams, gathers, tucks and pleats, collars, cuffs and pockets, buttons, bows, beads and sequins and applied decoration are all looked at in intricate detail. The craftsmanship is shown off with lively commentary, line drawings and stunning close-up photography. |
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Crowned ‘Designer of the Year’ by Vogue in 1970, Bill Gibb (1943–1988), barely out of college two years and yet to launch his eponymous line, was to become a major name in fashion history. Gibb’s career was prolific, and truly visionary at its finest, but sadly short-lived. His legacy, continued relevance and importance as a designer is apparent today in the work of designers from Giles Deacon to John Galliano. Famous for his love of romance, soaring flights of fancy and devil-may-care dynamic, Gibb’s wildly eccentric combinations of checks, tartans, stripes, floral prints and Fair Isle Knits had never been seen before. T his stunning book explores Gibb’s background, long-time fascination with historical imagery and the themes that inspired his designs. Award-winning fashion journalist Iain R Webb is a professor at Central Saint Martins; he writes for The Independent and New York Times magazine. |
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For nearly two decades Harry Hammond was Britain’s leading showbiz photographer. Starting in the late-1940s, his camera captured the definitive images of virtually every leading British musician, as well as visiting Americans. Drawing on the invaluable archive of over 11,000 images housed in the V&A, Alwyn W Turner tells the story of Britain’s embrace – and ultimate domination – of rock ‘n’ roll, from the earliest days with Bill Haley and the Comets to the emergence of the Beatles and Merseybeat. This remarkable collection includes photographs of Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Billy Fury, Johnny Kidd, Cliff Richard, Eddie Cochran, the Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Dusty Springfield and many more. |
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Focusing on up-and-coming designers and their contributions to the changing fashion industry in the vibrant climate of New York city, New York Fashion explores the city’s importance as a fashion capital in the 21st century. Tracing New York’s emergence after the Second World War as a major international fashion centre and looking at the important designers of the period, including Claire McCardell and Geoffrey Beene, it also takes in the last quarter of the 20th century which was dominated by the ready-to-wear empires of designers such as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. In the past five years a group of young, talented New Yorkbased designers have found critical and commercial success internationally. Sonnet Stanfill examines the reasons behind this exciting rise in new talent and illustrates the best examples of the work of 20 of New York’s next generation of fashion designers, including Zac Posen, Proenza Schouler, Jean Yu, Behnaz Sarafpour and Derek Lam. |
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«This book captures the richness of nineteenth-century fashion. As part of the V&A Fashion in Detail series, the opulence and diversity of clothing in the period are captured through exquisite colour photography, specially commissioned line drawings of the garments and authoritative text. Illustrating delicate embroidery on neoclassical gowns, Liberty & Co. smocking, vibrant colour on crinoline and bustles and elegant men’s tailoring, «Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail», now with a new cover, brings the nineteenth-century period to life.» |
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«This glamorous book, part of the V&A Fashion in Detail series, illustrates the intricate details of twentieth-century fashion. Spectacular photographs, accompanied by expert commentaries and specially commissioned line drawings, focus on fanciful Dior bows, Chanel button-holes and metal sprinfs on a Schiaparelli jacket. This unique study provides an insight into the techniques and craft practices used by couturiers and the construction of these amazing garments. «Twentieth-Century Fashion in Detail» will delight all followers of fashion. Previously available as «Modern Fashion in Detail».» |
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This wide-ranging survey offers a history of Western furniture which covers a dazzling array of styles, historical periods and countries. It looks at most of the main techniques and materials of furniture-making including carving and glass furniture. |
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«This sumptuously illustrated book reveals the decorative seams, exquisite stitching, voluptuous drapery, strict corseting and slashing and stamping that make up the clothing in the V&A's superlative seventeenth and eighteenth-century fashion collection. Using an authoritative text, exquisite colour photography and line drawings of complete garments, the reader is allowed the unique opportunity to look closely at clothing, often too fragile to be on display. Part of the «V&A Fashion in Detail» series, «Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail» is an inspirational resource for students, designers, collectors and all followers of fashion. This title was previously available as «Historical Fashion in Detail».» |
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Stephen Jones spearheaded the revival of British millinery in the early 1980s. Using radical materials and daring designs, his exquisite crafted hats encapsulated a modern and compelling mood. Today his era-defining edge continues to attract a celebrity clientele including Kylie Minogue, Gwen Stefani, Dita Von Teese and Madonna. Beautifully illustrated chapters examine the inspiration behind the creation of hats, the history of making, materials and the workroom, the lure of the hat shop and finally the etiquette of hat wearing. The book draws on Jones' unparalleled body of work, the V+A's extensive hat collection and key pieces from international hat collections and design houses. |
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Offers a study of the ideas that have shaped the domestic interior in the West over five hundred years. Looking at an array of depictions of the home, this book deals with both public and private attitudes to the domestic interior, and features various things from grand decorative schemes to homely cottages. |
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'You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes', according to Vivienne Westwood. A global icon, Vivienne Westwood's career has spanned three decades from the early days of punk to the successful establishment of her own fashion house. This book is a study of her work as a ground-breaking fashion designer. |
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