The history of fashion isn’t just crimes: fashion has a long and complex history because, as Stanley Tucci said in The Devil Wears Prada, “it’s more important than art because you live your life in it.” Fashion sits at the intersection of art, innovation, and daily life. You can always find an impressive fashion book at a museum that has an exhibit focused on a certain designer, decade, or cultural movement. Fashion aesthetics also shape literature and trends therein. We might joke about Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way describing her Hot Topic wardrobe in great detail, but the way characters choose to clothe themselves communicates status, time period, and how they want to be seen. This is why fashion history is so important: it reflects countercultural trends, changing social mores, and personal expression. There are many different angles to read about fashion, so I’ve tried to include a few different categories: books about specific items in fashion, memoirs from fashionable figures, and larger cultural fashion history books. If you want to learn more about fashion, there are books about the damage caused by fast fashion, the importance of sustainable fashion, and stories about models behind-the-scenes.
