the beautiful fall

[Image by Terry Richardson]

"Jacques saw the arch glamour of fashion and he, like so many others, was captivated. Beyond its creativity, renewal or money, it is glamour that proves fashion's perpetual seduction: glamour and its reflex of idealisation on to which every hope and fantasy can be projected; glamour and its implicit promise of a life devoid of mediocrity." — Alicia Drake, The Beautiful Fall

I bought this book after reading about it on the Lover blog. I don't often read fashion books or biographies - they can be dull. This is different. Documenting the rise of Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent in Paris in the early 1960s, it's impeccably researched and in-depth, and full of marvelous stories.  I'm only halfway through, but I love it -Betty Catroux, Loulou De Failaise, Marrakech, Karl without his dark glasses, Saint Tropez.