From a jaunt through fifties New York with a beloved fashion photographer to a beautifully illustrated exploration of Japanese culture; this list will encourage you to leave your all-too-familiar living room behind and jump into a new world entirely.
Ranging freely through literature, art, film and philosophy, Dressed tracks the hidden power of clothes in our culture and our daily lives. From the depredations of violence and ageing to our longing for freedom, love and privacy, from the objectification of women to the crisis of masculinity, each garment exposes a fresh dilemma. This is a book about the deepest philosophical questions of who we are, how we see ourselves and how we dress to face the world.
Shelley Klein’s tender and beautiful memoir about saying goodbye to an extraordinary family home, and an adored yet maddening parent. Her story is told through the prism of High Sunderland – a modernist house of colourful glass panels set against a forest of trees.
What could be more transporting than this gorgeous, fully-illustrated ode to Japanese culture? Junichiro Tanizaki's wise and evocative essay will gently lead you by the hand through traditional architecture to Noh theatre, from cookery to lighting.
Whether you’re a devotee to fashion or not, you’ll be captivated by this behind-the-scenes peek into a notoriously secretive and closed world. In the charismatic voice that endeared her to colleagues and the general public alike, Vogue’s notorious Creative Director Grace Coddington tells her story, taking us from windswept wartime Anglesey, to sixties London and her twenty five year professional partnership with Anna Wintour.
Called ‘magnificent’ by none other than Rebecca Solnit, Jane Jacobs’ classic book might just fill the city-shaped hole in your life. A rallying cry for a rethink of our urban planning, Jacobs will take you on a tour of the endless diversity, teeming street life and human scale of our cities, all without leaving your front room.
If you haven’t made time for Roland Barthes in your life yet, he deserves a spot on your TBR pile. This beautiful new Vintage Design edition of Camera Lucida is a fantastic place to start. This is Barthes’ final book and perhaps his most accessible; beginning as an investigation into the nature of photographs, and gradually becoming an exposition of his own mind, this groundbreaking book might just change the way you look at the world forever.
This whimsical memoir charting one man’s love affair with fashion will provide you with a dose of pure escapism. Beloved New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham died in 2016, but this wonderful peek into a life well-lived will make you feel as though he’s in the room with you, sharing his tales of hijinks at fashion galas, high tea in the Hamptons in the fifties and industry drama, all enthused with Bill’s personal ethos that beautiful things can be their own form of sustenance.
