<p>Because reading is what? Fundamental.</p>

<p><span>Fashion is not just about clothes, it is about power, identity, rebellion, and the people who bend the culture around them. From legendary runway face-offs, and fallen geniuses to quiet revolutions in ready-to-wear, these books chart the moments that reshaped the industry as we know it. Consider this your essential reading list for undersranding fashion beyong the runway, where history, politics, and style collide.&nbsp;</span></p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh&nbsp;</h3>

<p>Givhan returns with Make It Ours, a sharp, deeply considered portrait of Virgil Abloh and the luxury establishement he disrupted from within. Part biography, part cultural autopsy, the book traces Abloh's rise alongside fashion's streetwear reckoning, culminating in his historic and heartbreakingly brief tenure at Louis Vuitton.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano</h3>

<p>It&rsquo;s impossible to talk about modern fashion without running headfirst into two towering figures: Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. In Gods and Kings, Dana Thomas tracks their parallel rise, equal parts brilliance, chaos, and spectacle while zooming out to capture the birth of LVMH as the industry&rsquo;s ultimate power broker. Big ideas ruled, egos clashed, and fashion became a blood sport. The aftershocks are still being felt today.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir</h3>

<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been Bleak Street over here in America!&rdquo; declared Andr&eacute; Leon Talley, diagnosing New York fashion with a &ldquo;famine of beauty.&rdquo; In The Chiffon Trenches, the late editor and icon offers an unfiltered account of his life and career, from North Carolina to Paris&rsquo;s front rows. Lavish, incisive, and occasionally ruthless, it&rsquo;s fashion memoir at its most operatic.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity</h3>

<p>As the foundational text for the 2025 Met Gala theme, Monica L. Miller&rsquo;s <i>Slaves to Fashion</i> is essential reading. Beginning in the 18th century, Miller traces the evolution of the Black dandy, from its roots in the transatlantic slave trade to its modern expressions in art, music, and style, revealing fashion as both resistance and reclamation.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Worn: A People's History of Clothing</h3>

<p>Every garment has a backstory, and Worn tells it in full. Sofi Thanhauser unpacks the global textile industry, from ancient techniques to modern manufacturing, while confronting fashion&rsquo;s darker realities: waste, pollution, and labor exploitation. It&rsquo;s a sobering, necessary look at what our clothes really cost.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History</h3>

<p>The Battle of Versailles might not carry the same notoriety as its gilded surroundings, but for fashion, it was seismic. Pulitzer Prize, winning critic Robin Givhan revisits the legendary 1973 runway showdown that pitted American designers against their European counterparts and changed the global fashion hierarchy overnight.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Sex and Suits: The Evolution of Modern Dress</h3>

<p>If you prefer your fashion history with a side of intellectual rigor, Anne Hollander&rsquo;s Sex and Suits delivers. Spanning from medieval dress to modern tailoring, the book interrogates why menswear took a hard turn toward restraint after the 18th century, and how gender continues to shape what we wear.&nbsp;</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Empresses of Seventh Avenue: World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion</h3>

<p>Long before Fashion Week became a global circus, American designers were quietly rewriting the rules of ready-to-wear. Nancy MacDonell&rsquo;s Empresses of Seventh Avenue charts the post&ndash;World War II shift that put New York on the map, spotlighting the women who turned factories into fashion powerhouses, and forever changed how clothes are made and sold.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free</h3>

<p>Claire McCardell didn&rsquo;t just design clothes, she redesigned women&rsquo;s lives. Rejecting restriction in favour of ease, movement, and practicality, she laid the groundwork for American sportswear. Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson&rsquo;s biography finally gives McCardell her due, spotlighting a visionary whose influence far outweighs her recognition.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Dress Code: Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink</h3>

<p>In <i>Dress Code</i>, fashion's V&eacute;ronique Hyland examines how fashion, and the language surrounding it shapes everyday life. From the myth of the &ldquo;French girl&rdquo; to office dress politics, Hyland argues that style is never superficial. It&rsquo;s embedded in our routines, our identities, and our culture, whether we take it seriously or not.</p>

The 10 fashion history books everyone is reading today

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