Champagne Supernovas: Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen and the ’90s Renegades Who Remade Fashion
By Maureen Callahan (Touchstone, $32)
The gist: The gossipy tell-all cum cultural biography does for the designers and “supes” of the 1990s what The Beautiful Fall did for the Paris fashion scene in the late 1970s. Heroin-chic wasn’t just a term for Kate Moss’s skinny physique and rumoured post-Johnny Depp binges: One photographer calls the drug “the Manolo Blahniks” of the period, adding that models were often photographed with glistening skin not because of trendy art direction but because they were having “junkie sweats.”
The nugget: A year before his suicide, Alexander McQueen reportedly revealed to a friend that he was HIV positive, exhausted, considering leaving the industry and wanted Sarah Burton to take over for him.
Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography
By Meryle Secrest (Knopf, $41)
The gist: Secrest poured over the FBI’s files on Elsa Schiaparelli, whose business suffered in the years following the Second World War because of rumours about her loyalties. While Secrest says Schiaparelli’s husband was a con artist (not a count), she finds no proof that that the designer (who travelled freely between France and the U.S.) was a spy, a collaborator or sleeping with the enemy, as Coco Chanel did.
The nugget: At a fancy dress ball before the war, Chanel, a bitter rival, dared Schiaparelli to dance with her. When Chanel steered her into a chandelier of candles, Schiaparelli – dressed as a surrealist tree – caught fire and was extinguished by guests who splashed her with soda water. That’s one way to dispense with an enemy.
The Woman I Wanted to Be
By Diane von Furstenberg (Simon & Schuster, $32)
The gist: On the 40th anniversary of her famous jersey wrap dress, Diane von Furstenberg releases her second memoir, which is more about her mother (a steel-willed Belgian Holocaust survivor) and what it means to be a woman than it is a juicy account of her lovers (of which there are many).
The nugget: When a New York magazine cover story described the designer and her then-husband Egon von Furstenberg as a couple who have everything, she realized that she no longer wanted to be married.
Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History
By Rhonda K. Garelick (Random House, $41)
The gist: The latest biography of Coco Chanel is reverential and explores her role in the culture of her time, relaying minutiae of her rags to riches story (but little on her reported racism). There isn’t much new here except inference about her psychology. But in fairness, what more could be told about one of the more exhaustively chronicled (and self-reinvented) figures of modern fashion?
The nugget: For all her liberating clothes and business acumen, the diffident woman who claimed not to care what anyone thought was a social climber at heart. Chanel was “nasty” and “envious,” selected only conveniently aristocratic, well-heeled lovers and never got over her poor childhood and humble origins.
Hijacking the Runway: How Celebrities Are Stealing the Spotlight from Fashion Designers
By Teri Agins (Gotham Books, $33)
The gist: Fashion today is less about design and more about boldface branding, as the Wall Street Journal writer details with breezy case-study examples, including Jessica Simpson’s billion-dollar mainstream brand, Victoria Beckham’s high-end tailoring and even the anti-celebrity celebrity brand The Row.
The nugget: Celebrities in fashion are nothing new: Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie, who was dressed by Charles Worth, could be considered the world’s first supermodel. Worth made a wardrobe of 100 gowns for the Empress to wear during just one celebration in Egypt.