The Essential Fashion Reading List

If you long to become literate in fashion, look no further.

When I interviewed fashion critic Kristen Bateman last year, she said, “I want to encourage dialogue in fashion and encourage people to do their own research. So if [something encourages] people pick up a book and become more interested in the intellectual discourse surrounding fashion then I think it's a good thing.”

This got me thinking about which fashion books I’ve found the most enriching. I have an entire shelf full of books on fashion and some are better than others. The fashion criticism anthology that I couldn’t get in Canada and had to have smuggled over by a friend visiting the US? Surprisingly boring! But for every dud there’s an engrossing, educational read that expands your understanding of the genre. Here is what I’d consider required readings on the ultimate fashion curriculum.

Gods and Kings by Dana Thomas

Dana Thomas is a longtime fashion journalist living in Paris (she writes a Substack!). She’s written books about the globalization of luxury brands and the environmental impact of the clothing industry, but my favourite of her oeuvre is Gods and Kings, her delicious twin biography of the two most celebrated designers of the 90s, Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. Both came from working class backgrounds, both studied fashion at Central Saint Martins and both were freakishly incandescent talents. Thomas traces their rise and fall in fascinating detail, with plenty of Kate Moss gossip along the way. The whole time I felt like I was reading an academic version of a tabloid news story. Sheer brilliance. (Shop now)