Longchamp
(to be released in April 2009) the French leather goods company, is perhaps best known for its Le Pliage line, a collection of foldable travel bags made of vinyl with leather trim; two billion Le Pliage bags have been sold since 1993. This lavish book retraces and celebrates the history of this famous company as it marks its 60th anniversary.
From its beginnings creating leather goods for smokers, to its expansion into small leather goods in the 1950s, to the opening of the first Longchamp boutiques in the 1970s and '80s, the company has always been known for quality and style. Today, Longchamp has cultivated a devoted following. Its partnerships with artists Thomas Heatherwick and Tracey Emin and advertising campaigns with supermodel Kate Moss have cemented the company's reputation as a stylish innovator.
In the early 1970s, Philippe Cassegrain, Longchamp's founder, designed a line of bags called "LM," destined for the Japanese market. Its success gave Longchamp a solid reputation as a creator of women's handbags and enabled the company to expand throughout the rest of Asia. To celebrate the company's 60th anniversary Longchamp is reprising the bag and updating its unique logo in conjunction with the pioneering Belgian artist Jean-Luc Moerman.
The Towering World of Jimmy Choo: A Glamorous Story of Power, Profits, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Shoe
examines the world’s seemingly insatiable appetite for luxury goods by telling the behind-the-scenes tale of one of the most talked-about brands of our age. Jimmy Choo was a London shoemaker with a few famous clients when Tamara Yeardye, a London society girl, convinced him to launch a factory-produced luxury shoe line. Twelve years later, Jimmy Choo is a household name, and Tamara still presides over what is now one of the most successful luxury brands in the world, worth some $350 million. But along the way she was tested at every turn. The story of how the Jimmy Choo brand got to where it is today is one of love, hate, sex, fashion, finance, drugs, celebrity, power, intrigue, and ambition. And every word of it is true. Compelling to followers of both fashion and business, The Towering World of Jimmy Choo takes readers into a complex and rarified world. More here.
out there in case anyone else is planning their big day too!
'>Hats: An Anthology offers an unprecedented view of the world of millinery, drawing on the V&A’s extensive collection of hats, Stephen Jones’s own archive and iconic headgear from around the globe. Beautifully illustrated chapters examine the inspiration behind the creation of hats, the history of their construction, the lure of the hat shop and finally the etiquette and occasion of hat wearing for the client. Stephen Jones's work is represented in the permanent collections of the V&A, the Louvre (Paris), The Fashion Institute of Technology and the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (both New York), the Kyoto Costume Institute, and the Australian National Gallery (Canberra). Oriole Cullen is the V&A curator of ‘Fashion In Motion’ and Modern Textiles and Fashion.
