6 Books to Understand Fashion

If you are a fashion enthusiast or work in the area, you can indulge your quest for precious information by reading these fantastic books we curated and think might help you understand beyond what we see every day. Curiosities, history, backstage, the life of creators, and the fashion market are all subjects that will enrich your work and inspire you to create. After all, the more we know, the more we can bring things to the surface and debate putting more truth in what we pursue as fashion professionals and thus, contributing to the fashion business and world.

1. The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir

"During André Leon Talley’s first magazine job, alongside Andy Warhol at Interview, a fateful meeting with Karl Lagerfeld began a decades-long friendship with the enigmatic, often caustic designer.

The Chiffon Trenches offers a candid look at the who’s who of the last 50 years of fashion. At once ruthless and empathetic, this engaging memoir tells with raw honesty the story of how André not only survived the brutal style landscape but thrived - despite racism, illicit rumors, and all the other challenges of this notoriously cutthroat industry - to become one of the most renowned voices and faces in fashion."

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2. Fashion History from the 18th to the 20th Century

"Clothes define people". A person’s attire, whether it’s a sari, kimono, or business suit, is an essential code to his or her culture, class, personality, even faith. Founded in 1978, the Kyoto Costume Institute recognizes the importance of understanding clothes from sociological, historical, and artistic perspectives. With one of the world’s most extensive clothing collections, the KCI has amassed a wide range of historical garments, underwear, shoes, and fashion accessories dating from the 18th century to the present day."

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3. Circular Fashion: A Supply Chain for Sustainability in the Textile and Apparel Industry

"This introductory text to sustainability in fashion includes best practice case studies and profiles of companies such as Patagonia, Veja, Christopher Raeburn, and Stella McCartney. It begins with an overview of the fashion business, tackling the issues of the linear production model of make, use, dispose, before exploring the idea of the circular supply chain across all areas of the industry.

Circular Fashion is the must-have book for students, creatives, and anyone passionate about sustainability and fashion."

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4. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History (World of Art)

Another classic fashion book by James Laver is a true masterclass about fashion and the history of fashion. A must-read to anyone curious about this industry and also to understand the link between our behavior and society with the clothes we decide to wear.

The updated sixth edition features a new foreword and concluding chapter by Amy de la Haye and a new discussion about the major political shifts within the fashion industry, highlighting how it has responded to issues surrounding racism and sexism, LGBTQIA rights, mental health awareness, body and age diversity, and global sustainability. Generously illustrated with paintings, drawings, and photographs, and with a new angle on the emergence of ethical fashion, Costume and Fashion feels more current than ever.

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5. Women in Clothes

"Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities—famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives."

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6. Alexander McQueen: Unseen

"Never-before-seen photos of McQueen’s brilliantly creative world from an exclusive backstage photographer.

Alexander McQueen, the iconic designer whose untimely death in 2010 left the fashion world reeling and fans worldwide clamoring for more, fused immense creativity, audacity, and a hauntingly dark aesthetic sense into powerful, unforgettable imagery. The strange, singular beauty of his clothing was matched by the spectacle of his legendary fashion shows, which demonstrated his outstanding showmanship and consistently pushed the boundaries of runway events. Robert Fairer’s intimate, vibrant full-color photographs of McQueen’s collections, taken backstage and on the catwalk when few photographers were allowed access, offer a unique insight into the life and work of one of the world’s most captivating figures."

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photo: http://studiobaer.com/

Fun Fact: Rita Avellar, founder of Avellar, LLC is passionate about fashion, especially the history of fashion. She graduated as a fashion designer and has worked in different brands as a marketing manager, written for different blogs and social media, hosted a TV fashion show, and taught Fashion Marketing for 6 years. Fashion here is taken seriously. ;)

Rita Avellar during the recording of her fashion show in Rio de Janeiro

Pantone Color of The Year 2022 and By The Way, What is Pantone?

If you love creative stuff, you must have bumped into color palettes and color trend reports around websites and social media. If you didn't, it's ok, probably you were a little too distracted to notice. But the fact is, color trends lead way to a lot of what we buy, desire, create and dream of. Even unconsciously, we tend to be attracted to things that are around us and repeatedly are hammered inside our subconscious minds. This said, we will introduce Pantone's 2022 Color of The Year, and it's called Very Peri.

Pantone who?

Pantone started as a company that produced printed color card pallettes for cosmetic brands. In 1962, it was bought by Lawrence Herbert who used to be a worker at the company at the color matching making process, since 1956. In 1963 he created the Pantone Matching System and already had registered a vast color range of codes which resulted in what we know now about color-coding to this day. Its variety on so many different colors possible, varying from tones to brightness, intensity, and gamma, are all uniquely coded. In this way, anyone who picks a color, knowing the Pantone Match System's code, can send a supplier or designer, the specific number related to the color choice and by this code, suppliers have a "recipe" on what colors (usually through the CMYK or RGB systems) they'd have to mix (be either digital or print) to achieve that specific color (or the most approximate color to it). This makes designers' lives easier. Now look around you and pay attention to objects, cars, clothes, electronics... See those colors? Much of what we see in the creative world is colored by Pantone's system.

Learn more:

"The Pantone Color Matching System expands upon existing color reproduction systems such as the CMYK process. The CMYK process is a standardized method of printing colour by using four inks—cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The majority of the world’s printed material is produced using the CMYK process. The Pantone system is based on a specific mix of pigments to create new colours—referred to as Spot Colours. The Pantone system also allows for many ‘special’ colours to be produced such as metallics and fluorescents. While most of the Pantone system colours are beyond the printed CMYK gamut, those that are possible to simulate through the CMYK process are labeled as such within the company’s guides. "

- Design Face UK (official Pantone supplier)

If you'd like to go deeper and understand how the system works, directly from the source itself (Pantone). please go to Pantone Color System Explained

Pantone's Color of The Year 2022

Very Peri is the 2022 Pantone Color, who since 1999, predicts the annual trends according to their researches and market analysis. But exactly what does this mean? It means that researchers, coolhunters, professionals who are paid to do the predictions, come up with tons of information years in advance, about customer behavior, also about society changes (nobody was predicting the pandemic, well, sort of), so this leads to hints along the way so they can come up with common denominators and conclude about the next color. Very Peri is defined as a blueish, violet, with a hint of red color. Immediately when we look at it, we have this sense of calm, and something almost mystic happens. It is really a response to all that has been and all that we expect looking forward to after these last strange and very overwhelming years.

Cool fact: since the year 2000 Pantone has been releasing the color of the year. At that year the color was Cerulean Blue (hello "The Devil Wears Prada" fans), the color of the Millenium. Now, for the first time, Pantone developed the color of the year from scratch. The code for Very Peri is 17-3938 Very Peri, and it is a mix of periwinkle blue with violet undertones.

Images speak more than words, so we'll just scoop some eye-catching references as you catch the vibe and go along with us on this Very Peri journey!

Use of the color of the year Very Peri in decor - (photo: Himla)

You can get inspired by the color of the year and use it in decor ideas! In detailing like throw cushions or even flowers, you create the ambiance with the softness and ethereal energy that Very Peri emanates.

Sunrise Sky (photo: Esther Inwood Young)

Look at the sky! Simply breathe in and see all the colors that nature brings you. Yes, inspiration can also come literally from above. Try looking to the sky instead of looking so often at the screen. You might get insights and creative vibes, just to get your inspiration boost of the day!

Lady Gaga in Gucci (photo: Getty / Karwai Tang)

And there is fashion, of course! Lady Gaga rocks the Very Peri from head to toes from the Gucci label. Here we can get inspired with the use of the tones in makeup, and dress, in total harmony with her avant-garde personality. It proves that depending on the use, a somewhat angelical and ethereal color as Very Peri, can become a strong fashion statement.

The seed is blown to the wind. So now, look for these inspirations and start paying attention around you, and tell us if you've noticed some Very Peri things along the way! Bet ya you will!

Knitting Masterpiece

First time I saw Phil Ferguso's art in 2015 I was so impressed not only by his talent in knitting but with sense of humor.

The Australian Phil Ferguson creates different fun heads and other pieces like sweaters and vests, all super colorful. He has been creating crochet hats and posting them on social media platform Instagram since 2014 and has been getting attention of more than 136k followers around the world.

You can check out more of this guy's work on his Instagram profile here.