Best summer books of 2024: Fashion

All the Rage: Power, Pain, Pleasure: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty 1860-1960 by Virginia Nicholson (Virago)

As the high-fashion corset returns to the catwalk and the red carpet, thanks to John Galliano and Kim Kardashian, this deep dive into western female beauty over a century seems particularly timely. From details of gruesome early 20th-century cosmetic surgery involving paraffin wax injections to analysis of the idealised women presented by mid-century advertising, it’s a reminder that we haven’t come that far after all in the absurd pursuit of so-called beauty.

Less: Stop Buying So Much Rubbish: How Having Fewer, Better Things Can Make Us Happier by Patrick Grant (William Collins)

It’s not news that we need to consume less and prioritise quality, but fashion designer and judge on TV show The Great British Sewing Bee Patrick Grant’s new book is a convincing call to end our complacency. Themes such as the history of manufacturing and the rise of offshoring and fast fashion are woven into a case study of how we arrived at this unhealthy relationship with consumerism and how we can change.

Issey Miyake by Midori Kitamura (Taschen)

The late Japanese designer was seven years old when the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on his home city of Hiroshima. As documented in this stylish new coffee-table book, he also noted, “I seem to be present at occasions of great social change. Paris in May ’68, Beijing at Tiananmen, New York on 9/11. Like a witness to history.” But of course he also made fashion history as part of a group of Japanese designers who shook up Paris in the 1980s, and became legendary for the timeless cool of his pleated garments.

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