Fashion Biography

Susannah Constantine, our loved style guru and one half of the outrageously popular television programme What Not to Wear, spent her youth entangled in glitz and glamour. Susannah's very first memoir is filled to the brim with scandalous stories, jaw-dropping royal relationships and star-studded encounters from pop stars to the fashion greats. But beneath it all is a woman who is still getting to know herself, even after falling in love at first sight, presenting one of the most monumental television programmes ever and having Princess Margaret as a second mother figure.

As a child, Anna Wintour was a tomboy with no apparent interest in clothing, but, seduced by the miniskirts and bob haircuts of swinging 1960s London, she grew into a fashion-obsessed teenager. Her father, the influential editor of the Evening Standard, loomed large in her life, and once he decided she should become editor in chief of Vogue, she never looked back. Impatient to start her career, she left high school and got a job at a fashionable boutique in London—an experience that would be the first of many defeats.

Justine Picardie’s definitive biography explores the dark mysteries hidden beneath the shimmering surface of a fabled fashion icon. Unveiling remarkable details about Coco Chanel’s traumatic childhood and her flight into unconventional adulthood, this beautifully constructed portrait reveals her passionate and painful past, her turbulent loves and losses, her quest for fame and fortune, and how she transformed herself into her own most powerful creation.

One of the most influential, admired, and innovative women of our time: fashion designer, philanthropist, wife, mother, and grandmother, Diane von Furstenberg shares stories about becoming the woman she wanted to be. Diane von Furstenberg started out with a suitcase full of jersey dresses and an idea of who she wanted to be - in her words, "the kind of woman who is independent and who doesn’t rely on a man to pay her bills."

Versace. The very name conjures up images of outrageous glamour and bold sexuality, opulence and daring. All of course true, but only half the story. Versace is also the legacy of a great creative genius from a poor, backward part of southern Italy who transformed the fashion world through his intuitive understanding of both women and how a changing culture influenced the way they wanted to dress. House of Versace shows how Gianni Versace, with his flamboyant sister Donatella at his side, combined his virtuosic talent and extraordinary ambition to help create celebrity culture.

From busking with Andrew Loog Oldham before he managed the Rolling Stones, to being invited to stay with Sharon Tate the night of the Manson murders, to being (with her daughter and Lynne Franks) the inspiration for Absolutely Fabulous, Tanya is one of those people who seems to have fitted more into one life than most of us would fit into nine. Above all though she is that still all too rare thing, a female entrepreneur who achieved true global success solely as a result of her own hard work and talent and entirely on her own terms.

Louis Vuitton was just thirteen years old, when, he left the family mill to escape his stepmother. In Paris, he found work with Maréchal, the most prestigious box-maker and packer in Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Caroline Bongrand's vivid account relates the rise of this daring young man, a virtuoso, visionary craftsman in a capital city transformed by Haussmann. When Eugénie de Montijo became Empress of France, she continued to enlist the services of her favorite packer, with whom she developed a sincere, lasting friendship.

Law Roach is the mastermind behind looks that have broken the Internet time and again—from Zendaya at the Met Gala to Anya Taylor-Joy at the Golden Globes, from Lewis Hamilton’s iconic streetwear to Céline Dion’s style renaissance. Nobody knows better than Law how to turn an outfit into a moment of fashion history. Now, for the first time ever, Law shares the secrets of his approach. With How to Build a Fashion Icon, he takes listeners behind the scenes of his process and journey.

Fashion is a business of smoke and mirrors, notorious for crushing the souls of most who dare to be part of the industry. Go on a global expedition with New York City-based fashion buyer, strategist, and consultant, Mercedes Gonzalez, as she learns that there is no glamour in fashion and that only cutthroat corporate espionage prevails. From politicking with blood diamond dealers and Russian kingpins to living in indigenous villages, she has relied on her street smarts and fear of her uncle in order to outwit the industry tyrants at their own game.

Danielle Bernstein spent her youth shopping at discount department stores, getting boozy in suburban backyards, and proposing marriage to every boy she dated. By age 19, she was a college dropout living in a West Village shoebox with three roommates and only six months to prove that her blog, @WeWoreWhat, could become a full blown career...or else board the train back to her mom's house. This Is Not a Fashion Story is the down and dirty tale of how a Long Island-born teenager became one of the most recognizable names in fashion.

​Diane von Furstenberg, entrepreneur and philanthropist, presents her words to live by. In an easy-to-navigate A-Z dictionary format, designed to be browsed or listened to as a whole, Own It offers listeners Diane’s well-earned wisdom for enjoying both personal and professional growth at any age.

Young Mary Newton, born into a large Irish family in a small Watford semi, is always getting into trouble. When she isn’t choking back fits of giggles at Holy Communion or eating Chappie dog food for a bet, she’s accidentally setting fire to the local school. Mary is a trouble magnet. And unlike her brothers, somehow she always gets caught.... Britain in the 1970s is a world where R. White's lemonade is drunk in secret, curry comes in a box marked "Vesta", and beanz meanz Heinz.

The story of The Hundreds and the precepts that made it an iconic streetwear brand. The creative force behind the brand, Bobby Kim, a.k.a. Bobby Hundreds, has emerged as a prominent face and voice in streetwear. In telling the story of his formative years, he reminds us that The Hundreds was started by outsiders; and this is truly the story of streetwear culture.

In Clothes...And Other Things that Matter, Alexandra Shulman delves into her own life to look at the emotions, ambitions, expectations and meanings behind the way we dress. From the bra to the bikini, the trench coat to trainers, the slip dress to the suit, she explores their meaning in women's lives and how our wardrobes intersect with the larger world - the career ladder, motherhood, romance, sexual identity, ambition, failure, body image and celebrity.

In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of her life and times. Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes. Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curator. Strasdin spent the next six years unravelling the secrets contained within the album's pages. Piece by piece, she charts Anne's journey from the mills of Lancashire to the port of Singapore before tracing her return to England in later years.

McQueen had risen from humble beginnings as the youngest child of an East London taxi driver to scale the heights of fame, fortune and glamour. He designed clothes for the world's most beautiful women, including Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. In business he created a multimillion-pound luxury brand that became a favourite with both celebrities and royalty, most famously the Duchess of Cambridge, who wore a McQueen dress on her wedding day. But behind the confident facade and bad-boy image lay a sensitive soul who struggled to survive in the ruthless world of fashion.

We all know that the best way to study a foreign language is to go to a country where it's spoken, but can the same immersion method be applied to history? How do interactions with antique objects influence perceptions of the modern world?

Editor in chief Alexandra Shulman kept a diary of British Vogue's centenary year. And what a year. She reveals the emotional and logistical minefield of producing the 100th anniversary issue (that Duchess of Cambridge cover surprise), organising the star-studded Vogue 100 Gala and working with designers from Victoria Beckham to Karl Lagerfeld and contributors from David Bailey to Alexa Chung, all under the continual scrutiny of a television documentary crew.

Far from worrying about the onset of war, in the spring of 1938 the burning question on the French Riviera was whether one should curtsy to the Duchess of Windsor. Few of those who had settled there thought much about what was going on in the rest of Europe. It was a golden, glamorous life, far removed from politics or conflict.

Nice women never wore makeup. Even the word was taboo in polite society—until Max Factor entered the scene. Born in Poland in 1877, Factor worked as a beautician for the Russian royal family, the Romanovs. In 1904, he fled to America, where he opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles. Creating makeup originally for silent films, then the talkies, and, ultimately, color motion pictures, Factor designed looks for Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, and countless other beauties of the day. Soon women everywhere wanted to look like their favorite glamorous stars, and Factor was there to help, bringing his innovative cosmetics to the general public.