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A collection of witty and sometimes wry quotes, inspiring edicts, and philosophies about fashion and style by celebrated fashion designers—from Coco Chanel to Tom Ford—as told to acclaimed fashion journalist Marylou Luther.
In her seventy-year career as a fashion journalist, newspaper columnist, and author, Marylou Luther has interviewed the most iconic figures in the fashion world who open up and spill the proverbial fashion “dirt” to Luther.
In her early days as a journalist, Luther met with the true legends of fashion—she interviewed Christian Dior in 1957 for the Chicago Tribune and visited Coco Chanel at her Rue Cambon atelier; Chanel proclaimed to Luther that “Only those with no memory insist on their originality. Yves Saint Laurent has excellent taste. The more he copies me, the better taste he displays.” Flash forward to present day, and designer Demna Gvasalia told Luther, “Fashion needs to shut up and look at itself—it needs a minute of silence to adjust after the pandemic.”
Featuring Karl Lagerfeld, Virgil Abloh, Marc Jacobs, Azzedine Alaïa, Rei Kawakubo, Miuccia Prada, Thom Browne, and more, the book celebrates the designers with drawings by fashion’s favorite illustrator, Ruben Toledo. His charming and vibrant renderings of these creative individuals, combined with inspiring and humorous text, makes this captivating book a must-have for fashion lovers everywhere.
From the Publisher
PREFACE
Ever since Eve put on the fig leaf and Japanese courtiers held court in their kimonos, the past has been present in fashion. There was Cleopatra in her nemes, Marie Antoinette in her panniers, Queen Victoria in her bustles, Malayan women in their sarongs, cross-dressers like Marlene Dietrich in their tuxedos, and Moroccans in their abayas.
Through the years, generations have seen those clothes and clothes of many, many others. But they have rarely heard from the men and women who designed them.
Until now.
This book, Be-Spoke, is an illustrated collection of quotes dating from Coco Chanel, born in 1883, to Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss, born in 1986, and everyone in between.
These quotes are from my interviews as a fashion journalist for the Des Moines Register, the Chicago Tribune, McCall’s Fashionews, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, the International Fashion Syndicate and Fashion Group International, plus designers’ program notes from their fashion shows and, in some instances, from personal exchanges.
What makes this virtual word-robe so special is that the quotes are illustrated by artist extraordinaire Ruben Toledo, whose fantastic artworks bring to life the quotes they illustrate. To get right to it, Be-Spoke is a coffee table book with cream and sugar.
Marylou Luther
Marylou Luther is the editor and founder of the International Fashion Syndicate and award-winning “Clotheslines” column and is the fashion editor emeritus of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.
Publisher : Rizzoli (February 14, 2023)
Language : English
Hardcover : 144 pages
ISBN-10 : 0847872025
ISBN-13 : 978-0847872022
Item Weight : 2.7 pounds
Dimensions : 9.29 x 0.94 x 12.06 inches