Commercial Books

Fashion Artist (Fashion Design Series)

Sandra Burke

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Burke Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $18.74

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Oh, how I wish I had this in school! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I wore holes in piles of paper trying to work up to the basic points so magnificently outlined in this book! It's like having an art teacher with you (without the snide remarks) to bring your abilities to the top.

If you are planning on studying fashion, or just doing it for fun, you need this book.

Highly recommended!

Perfect for beginners 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book is a great start for beginners who want to work in the fashion industry or for those who consider fashion designing a hobby and want to improve on their illustration skills, like myself. Burke starts with the basics, like learning how to draw the female figure in different poses and drawing some examples of clothes, but she also touches upon fabric rendering and ideas on how to make a presentation. There's even a section on designing for men, childeren, and costumes. Overall a very informative, clear and consise book to get started and to encourage and inspire amateurs to want to learn more.

I like what I see. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I haven't really had a chance to play a lot with this book since I got it a month ago, but so far, I like it. There are very colorful designs, croquis', and many illustrations. It seems like it gives a lot of information in a short amount of time.

Fashion Design Drawing Course

Caroline Tatham

Amazon Price: $16.29 List Price: $23.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Barron's Educational Series Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $12.79

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A superb reference book and an ideal instructional textbook for classroom use, this beautifully illustrated guide is organized into units that reflect required courses at leading design colleges. Twenty step-by-step exercises cover methods of finding inspiration, developing observation techniques, and creating fashion drawings in both color and black-and-white media. Separate sections are devoted to getting started and understanding figure proportions, planning and designing garments, and creating and assessing flat specification drawings. The book also features cross-references to its various art instruction techniques, a designer’s glossary, and a helpful index. This book guides students through their first steps in fashion illustration, covering everything that is presented in the best college-level courses. It makes a fine starting point for all students of fashion, introducing them to fashion drawing as a first step toward a career as a creative costumier. More than 250 illustrations in color and black and white.

Tom Ford

Tom Ford

Amazon Price: $91.65 List Price: $125.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Rizzoli International Publications Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $84.55

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Tom Ford has become one of fashion's great icons. In the past decade, he transformed Gucci from a moribund accessories label into one of the sexiest fashion brands in the world. His designs have increased sales at Gucci tenfold and have helped build the Gucci brand into the luxury goods conglomerate that it is today. Ford brought a hard-edged style synonymous with 21st century glamour to his clothes, and Hollywood sat up and took note.
This book is a complete catalogue of Ford's design work for both Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent from 1994 to 2004. It chronicles not only Ford's clothing and accessories designs for both houses, but also explores Ford's grand vision for the complete design of a brand, including architecture, store design, and advertising.
Tom Ford features more than 200 photographs by Richard Avedon, Mario Testino, Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Terry Richardson, Craig McDean, Todd Eberle, and numerous other photographers including many previously unpublished images.
Published to coincide with his departure from Gucci, this book has been created with Ford's full cooperation and every page reflects his exceptional taste. It is Ford's testament to a career of singular moments reinventing the boundaries of style and sensuality in clothing.

Jacques Helleu and Chanel

Jacques Helleu, Laurence Benaim

Amazon Price: $78.75 List Price: $125.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc." Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $43.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Wonderfull 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 9 people found this review helpful.

A must have for any collector of fashion books. great format, great layout and of course amazing pcs from the long history of this iconic company

Editorial Review:

Jacques Helleu is the eye behind the House of Chanel’s enduring image, having explored the meanings of this legendary brand in daring commercials and fabulous print ads for the past 40 years. He has given tangible, glamorous shape to the essential mystique of Chanel’s perfumes, by bringing together artistic luminaries (from photographer Helmut Newton, to director Baz Luhrman, to actress Catherine Deneuve, and countless others) and masterfully guiding the creative combustion that has resulted.

This beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated volume tells the story of Helleu’s vision. Stiletto magazine founder Laurence Benaïm’s foreword puts Helleu’s grand influence into perspective, and Helleu himself presents four decades of inspiration, arranged from A to Z in themes, including: Allure. Coco. Egoïste. Femme. Goude. Joaillerie. N°5. Newton. Penn. Proust. Rouge. Séduction. Style. Temps. Vitesse. Warhol.

The Fundamentals of Fashion Design (Fundamentals (Ava))

Jenny Udale, Richard Sorger

Amazon Price: $23.07 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: AVA Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $17.41

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Fundamentals of Fashion Design: a must-have! 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Whether you are starting out in Fashion Design, or you are a teacher in the Fashion arena, or you have a general interest in fashion, this book is for you!

It is clearly written and logically structured. The entire design process is covered, from developing the initial concept through to creating a collection. Each step is outlined and helpful photos enhance the text. Topics include: Concept, theme, research, storyboard, silhouette, proportion, fabric, accessories, drawing, developing a collection, branding, and careers.

There is a section of interviews with people who work in the fashion industry. These give the reader a great view of where fashion can take you. They provide a useful insight into the real world of working in fashion. You might become a designer, a buyer, the leader of a fashion company, a selling agent, a fashion editor, illustrator, stylist, photographer. There are interviews with people who fill these roles.

"The Fundamentals of Fashion Design" would be a great text book for a fashion course. It is attractive and easy to read, while still covering topics in enough depth to challenge your thinking. It would also be suitable for anyone who wants to further develop their interest in fashion and the fashion industry.

I was impressed by this book, and I will be recommending it to my students who are studying fashion design!

Editorial Review:

Highly visual, stunning overview

* Covers the basics and the underlying principles
* What people wear and why they wear it
* Unique insights into working methods of design pros

Like the other titles in the Fundamentals series, this book offers an introductory look at its subject--with a sophisticated twist. This overview of fashion design has been created for students, but it will also appeal to anyone with an interest in what people wear and why they wear it. Sections include Pattern Construction and Cutting, Fashion Movements, Textiles, Creative Thinking, and Selling Clothes. With exciting visuals and clear text, The Fundamentals of Fashion Design uses detailed diagrams, historical references, and innovative layout to challenge readers to consider the underlying principles of fashion design.

Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture

Brooke Hodge, Patricia Mears, Susan Sidlauskas

Amazon Price: $35.13 List Price: $50.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Thames & Hudson Amazon Marketplace: 13 new & used starting at $33.49

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The first comprehensive examination of the many overlaps and visual and intellectual principles that unite fashion and architecture.

In recent years, the boundaries between architecture and fashion have become increasingly blurred, and this beautifully illustrated new book explores the intersections and concepts that underlie the two disciplines. Both architecture and fashion are based on the human body and on ideas of space, volume, and movement. Each functions as shelter or wrapping for the body—a mediating layer between the body and the environment—and can express personal, political, and cultural identity.

Fashion designers and architects share much of the same vocabulary and similar techniques of construction: pinning, darting, folding, wrapping, draping. Fashion designers have always been able to achieve complex, often architectonic garments using fabric. Today, many architects are looking to fashion and techniques of tailoring as they attempt to achieve more and more complex forms using hard materials.

The book focuses on the period 1980 to the present and includes forty-six architects and fashion designers from the United States, Europe, and Japan. The featured designers include Issey Miyake, Junya Watanabe, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, and Vivienne Westwood, among others. The architects include Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, and Eisenman Architects. 530 illustrations, 500 in color.

Madeleine Vionnet

Betty Kirke

Amazon Price: $80.00 List Price: $100.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Chronicle Books Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $52.52

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Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Madeleine Vionnet's greatest distinction as a designer was her discovery of the bias cut. Cutting patterns along the bias forces the fabric to cling to the body and move with it, which created her trademark look of draped, form-conscious clothing. When designer Issey Miyake first saw a Vionnet dress, it was like the first time he saw Winged Victory at the Louvre: "I thought then that the statue of Nike had been reincarnated in the dresses by Vionnet. She had captured the most beautiful aspect of classical Greek aesthetics: the body and movement." Vionnet's long career as a dressmaker and designer began with the 20th century. Always conscious of women's bodies and inspired in part by modern dancer Isadora Duncan, she soon dispensed with corsets and other constricting garments, and used barefoot models to present her first solo collection. Though simple, her dresses were never plain; the use of a Cartier necklace as a halter strap is a classic Vionnet innovation. This inimitable combination of comfort and glamour made Vionnet's clothes a favorite among European nobility, Hollywood royalty--notably Marlene Dietrich, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Katharine Hepburn--as well as socialites and other trendsetters. Close to a century after its introduction, the bias cut remains an important element in clothing design.

Madeleine Vionnet is a tall book that echoes many of the designs inside. It is filled with contemporary photographs of the clothing, period pictures shot by Man Ray and Steichen, design sketches, and, perhaps most interestingly, patterns for the clothes. The accompanying text traces Vionnet's evolution from an 11-year-old seamstress, through her days apprenticing at the famed Callot Soeurs couture house in Paris, and on into the design empire that secured her an enduring spot in fashion history.

Essential Fashion Illustration

Maite Lafuente

Amazon Price: $23.10 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Rockport Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $20.00

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This book's aim is to submerge the reader in the world of illustration. The first section ranges from how to start to draw a human figure to the techniques to stylize and synthesize it. This section provides a large amount of figures in different poses, as well as hands and feet-often the most difficult parts - in diverse postures and angles. However, in the field of fashion it is also essential to know how to draw fabric, and even more important to know how to draw the folds of clothing. The items of clothing are presented as much in technical drawing as in figures in movement, and forming light and shadow is also explained, as this gives quality to the illustration.

The second part of the book revolves around color and the different techniques with which one can work: watercolor, wax, pastel, and so on. All the drawings that appear constitute a brief exhibition of the changes that the fashion world has experienced and with this in mind a path has been laid which starts in 1900, illustrated in watercolors, and finishes in 2000, illustrated in pencil. The goal of this volume is to uncover the reader's desire to paint and to provide him with some of the secrets that will encourage him to do so. After all, experience is the most effective way to learn, whatever the subject.

Manolo Blahnik Drawings

Manolo Blahnik, Anna Wintour, Michael Roberts

Amazon Price: $26.37 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Thames & Hudson Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $14.88

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Manolo Blahník's shoes inspire fanatical devotion. "Manolo Blahník's shoes are as good as sex," Madonna has said. "And they last longer." Diane Von Furstenberg has more than eighty pairs; Paloma Picasso has been a fan since she was fourteen; Bianca Jagger and Kate Moss, to name just a few, are fellow addicts. For three decades, Blahník's sense of the theatrical wedded to the finest materials and superlative craftsmanship have held the fashion world spellbound, and his creations have graced the catwalks of great designers from Yves Saint-Laurent to Isaac Mizrahi to John Galliano.

Here, collected together for the first time, are over one hundred exquisite drawings that Blahník makes at the outset of the design process. These sketches are executed with such exuberance and deftness that they have become as sought after as the shoes themselves (they often fetch up to $15,000.00 at charity auctions). Inimitable in style, the drawings, beautifully reproduced in this book with special inks, vividly convey Blahník's unique vision. Whether it's a Grecian sandal designed for Galliano, with a snake-like strap slithering up the calf, or an emerald- and bead-fringed satin mule, the seductive attention to detail in the drawings conjures up the shoe itself.

Illuminating introductions by Anna Wintour and Michael Roberts explore why Manolo Blahník's shoes inspire such passion, and these are complemented throughout the book by the words of admirers including Suzie Menkes, Donatella Versace, and David Hockney. Michael Roberts also contributes a photographic essay showing Blahník at work in his studio, making sketches, preparing the wooden lasts, and supervising the production of his shoes at his factories in Italy. A final "scrapbook" section includes Manolo Blahník's own photographs of family, friends, and inspirational places. 150 illustrations, 120 in color.

Hoorah for the Bra: A Perky Peek at the History of the Brassiere

Cheree Berry

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 7 to 12 days By: "Stewart, Tabori and Chang" Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $2.95

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

It was in 1914 that Mary Phelps Jacob set women free—from the prison of the corset. With a little help from her lady’s maid, this ingenious New York socialite stitched together two handkerchiefs and a long pink ribbon to fashion the world’s first-ever brassiere. (Jacob later sold her patent for $1,500—to a company that went on to make $15 million off her invention.) The rest, as they say, is history—a history that’s amply, titillatingly documented by designer Cheree Berry in Hoorah for the Bra.

The 20s’ flat-chested flappers, the 50s’ bullet-bosomed bombshells, the eye-gouging cones of Madonna’s Blonde Ambition–tour bustier: this provocative pop-up book reveals it all. The straps and the cups. The underwire and the padding. The elastic and the Lycra. The demure pink satin and the racy midnight lace. Hoorah for the Bra tells a tale that doesn’t sag and presents a cast of characters—mail-order moguls, brassiere-torching women’s-libbers, sweater-clad movie stars—who never let you down. Sure to be a bust-out hit, the book’s the perfect gift for any Wonderbra dreamer or Frederick’s of Hollywood vamp. To view the pop-ups, you just lift and separate!