Miren Arzalluz Livres

Azzedine Alaia (1935-2017) was not only a world-renowned fashion designer but also an avid collector of vintage fashion. Now a major exhibition at the Palais Galliera, Paris, Azzedine Alaia showcases the extensive collection he built up over the decades, driven by his fascination with the history of couture and his desire to conserve its heritage for future generations. Accumulated in utmost secrecy and never revealed during his lifetime, the sumptuous selection of garments ranges from the nineteenth-century elegance of Jacques Doucet and the House of Worth to the names that shaped twentieth-century fashion--Chanel, Balenciaga, Dior, Schiaparelli--and contemporary innovators such as Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen. Captured in specially taken photographs, these meticulously crafted pieces are a tribute to Alaia's unerring tastes, to the couturiers who inspired and influenced him, and to his endless respect for the craftspeople who created such objects of lasting beauty.

A richly illustrated, in-depth retrospective of the life and work of fashion icon Gabrielle Chanel. A revolutionary fashion icon, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel can lay claim to inventing modern women’s fashion. At the beginning of the twentieth century, she stripped women of their corsets, bobbed their hair, and sent them out into the sun to get a tan. She introduced the little black dress, created women’s trousers, and produced the exquisitely made suits that became her trademark. She designed the first-ever couture perfume—No. 5—whose square-cut, cubist bottle became a symbol of art deco style, and which remains the most popular scent ever created. Her ideas on elegance and what it meant to be a modern woman created an immutable sense of style that still resonates today. Published to accompany a landmark exhibition in Paris, Gabrielle Chanel chronicles the designer’s life from birth through the evolution of her timeless style. Specially commissioned photographs by Julien T. Hamon showcase her designs, while essays from fashion historians complemented by rare archival documents, including pictures of Chanel herself, paint a portrait of the designer in her time. This volume is a must-have for all fashion fans and students.

With his provocative and subversive approach to design, Rick Owens has been a transformative force in fashion since he founded his label in 1994. This essential volume is the first critical appraisal of Owens’s work, documenting the evolution of nearly three decades of the designer’s inimitable worldview. Owens remains one of the most daring and influential fashion designers working today. Often described for his “a-grunge-meets-glamor” aesthetic, Owens has cultivated a devoted international following. In his creations, grace and grit are paired with an obsession with structural transformation and movement, where diaphanous, flowing shapes contrast with opaque forms and sharp edges, an approach to formal invention that is complemented by a mania for new and often exotic materials. Timed to coincide with the first comprehensive show of the designer’s work taking place at the Palais Galliera in Paris in summer 2025, the scope and breadth of this exhibition promises to be a treat to both longtime fans and the uninitiated. Owens will reimagine the grand nineteenth-century palace housing the museum, with temporary installations that will serve as vitrines to his many creations. In effect dividing the book between the conception of showcases and the precious objects that they display within, the curatorial essays bookending this visual narrative will attempt to describe the multidisciplinary, even architectural approach Owens has to his creations.