The name Valentino has been synonymous with high fashion for almost fifty years.

Based in Rome, Valentino is only one of two couture houses recognized by the French government outside of Paris. His exquisite designs are coveted and worn by young Hollywood and high society the world over. On the occasion of his last couture collection, presented in Paris in the spring of 2008, this landmark book celebrates forty-five years of Valentino’s remarkable career.

Published in association with a prestigious exhibition at the Museé des Arts Decoratifs’s famed costume department in Paris, this volume focuses on Valentino’s haute couture creations, highlighting the most important and iconic creations of his half-century in fashion through recurring themes in Valentino’s work - variations on the ideas of volume, line, and texture as well as motifs such as geometry, pleats, and flowers - through new photography, sketches, fabric samples, and commentary on the dresses by Valentino himself. In addition, unprecedented photography by François Halard of Valentino’s last fittings and backstage of his runway show reveals Valentino’s private world for the first time.

"Valentino On Valentino," a chapter of first-person accounts of the designs of these iconic dresses, along with Valentino’s commentary on his fashion, will make this publication unique in the study of Valentino as a cultural and artistic icon.

About the Author:

Pamela Golbin is the Curator in Chief at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile of the Louvre in Paris, where she was the curator of the exhibition Balenciaga Paris in 2006 and the author of the accompanying catalogue.

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Пролистать книгу Valentino: Themes and Variations

A leading name in the international design scene, and a regular in every major shelter magazine in America, his native France and worldwide, Jean-Louis Deniot is celebrated for his exceptionally sophisticated and erudite take on classical style.

Deniot is known for layering — art and furniture from different periods, custom-made pieces with one-of-a-kind antiques — with inviting harmony and elegance. Deniot’s timeless and glamorous rooms possess an almost cinematic aesthetic without being either too formal or trendy. 

With stunning photography and a series of discerning project-by-project conversations between the designer and author Pamela Golbin, Destinations takes the reader around the world to eighteen destinations showcasing Deniot’s newest never-before-published international projects, from his own handsome Paris office, tropical retreats in Miami, Manhattan aeries, and the interior of a private jet in Aspen, to an elegant townhouse in London, an Italian waterfront villa, and projects in Colombia, India, Russia, and Morocco.

Destinations is the design book must of the year, both for fans of his work and the Francophile dreamer looking for inspiration — wherever they live in the wide world.

About the Authors:

Jean-Louis Deniot is a Parisian designer working around the world. Named “the modern master of French interiors” by Forbes, he’s included in top international design lists and regularly featured in Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Town & Country, and the Wall Street Journal. His first book, Jean-Louis Deniot Interiors was published by Rizzoli in 2014. Pamela Golbin is an internationally acclaimed cultural thought leader and luxury industry authority. During her 25-year tenure as chief curator of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, she authored dozens of books including Couture Confessions, Louis Vuitton: Marc Jacobs and Valentino: Themes and Variations.

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Пролистать книгу Jean-Louis Deniot: Destinations

Style meets movement: a new photography book featuring more than eighty of today's most famous dancers, captured in movement and styled in garments designed by some of fashion's biggest names.

From renowned photographers Ken Browar and Deborah Ory, the husband-and-wife team behind NYC Dance Project and the best-selling photography book The Art of Movement, comes their follow-up book for fans of dance, fashion, and photography. Spotlighting today's greatest dancers -- from ballet to modern -- in clothing by today's and yesterday's most celebrated designers, this stunning volume takes the relationship between style, fashion, and dance as its subject. The dancers bring the pages to life with their grace and movement, becoming one with what they're wearing. Whether in couture gowns from Dior, Valentino, Oscar de la Renta, vintage Halston, Moschino, and Bill Blass, or in costumes designed by Martha Graham herself, the world-renowned dancers featured in these pages -- including Tiler Peck, Daniil Simkin, Misty Copeland, Christine Shevchenko, Xander Parish, and Olga Smirnova--bring movement to style.

About the Authors:

Ken Browar is a renowned fashion and beauty photographer. His passion for dance began when he lived in Paris and photographed dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet.

Deborah Ory began her photography career while injured as a dancer, photographing rehearsals. She has worked as a photo editor at House & Garden and Mirabella, and has also done her own work as a photographer. Together, Browar and Ory are the creative team behind NYC Dance Project. Their work has been featured in magazines worldwide including Harper's Bazaar, Dior Magazine, L'Uomo Vogue, and many others. Their photographs have been exhibited at many galleries.

This fascinating publication presents the roles two men have played in turning a small workshop in nineteenth-century Paris into one of the most successful and recognized brands in the world.

Known for both craftsmanship and must-have high design, Louis Vuitton the luxury house was started by its eponymous founder in 1854. The first half of this publication traces the innovations by Vuitton, who turned the little-known guild profession of emballeur (packer) into the foremost luxury trunk maker in Paris, with a clientele that included in his lifetime the French nobility as well as the elite of a prosperous empire. Prime and never-before-seen examples of Vuitton’s craftsmanship, along with the fashion that went into them, are the highlights of these chapters. The second half of the book examines the role of Marc Jacobs as Louis Vuitton’s creative director (since 1997), who took the Louis Vuitton house into a new era with a series of collaborations with artists and designers - such as Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and Stephen Sprouse - as well as designing a line of highly successful and desired clothing for the company.

By examining two divergent but often similar careers one hundred years apart, Louis Vuitton / Marc Jacobs is not only a layered study of the evolution of a luxury brand in the past 150 years but also a celebration of technical and design innovations in the new century.

About the Author:

Pamela Golbin is the chief curator of twentieth-century and contemporary fashion and textiles at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris. She is the author of Madeleine Vionnet and Valentino: Themes and Variations.

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Пролистать книгу Louis Vuitton / Marc Jacobs: In Association with the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

Famous for the "bias cut", Madeleine Vionnet’s sophisticated approach to couture remains a pervasive influence today.

Eschewing artificial and restrictive padding and stiffening, she liberated the female form with designs that integrated movement and comfort into women’s fashion. She also championed unusual fabrics that were luxurious and sensual yet simple and modern - chiffon, silk, crêpe de chine, gabardine, and satin. Her most revolutionary creations - the handkerchief dress, cowl neck, and halter top - cling to and seamlessly move with the wearer. Vionnet’s principles of elegance, movement, architectural form, and timeless style continue to inform contemporary fashion.

This lavishly illustrated book showcases Vionnet’s daringly original designs worn by 80 internationally famous models photographed especially for this book alongside original patterns and archival images by such icons as Horst and Steichen.

This was the profession of faith of the man whom Dior called ‘the master of us all’. Strict, even ascetic, Balenciaga was, with Chanel, Dior and Schiaparelli, one of the icons of the golden age of haute couture. The care he took with a garment’s construction, the perfection of his cut, his choice of materials, textures and colours, including an intense black, gave his vision of fashion and refinement a singular distinction, that became the fashion house’s famous signature.

Having presented his last collection in February 1968, Balenciaga decided to close his salons and to return to live in the country of his birth, Spain. Thirty years later, Nicolas Ghesquière re-established the artistic direction of the house, giving the venture – once thought to be finished – a new lease of life. Universally acclaimed for his freshness of vision, sobriety and a rigour that recalls that of his predecessor, Ghesquière is considered one of the most important creative personalities at work today.

Balenciaga Paris pays homage to this unique fashion enterprise, covering both stellar periods of the house – a span of some 75 years.

With a fascinating collection of photographs, sketches, illustrations and press comments, assembled by Pamela Golbin, curator at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile, the book presents a precise chronology and a detailed account of this two-part journey.

Designed by Fabien Baron, art director of Vogue, and featuring work by some of the finest photographers of our time, including Irving Penn, this publication provides not only the compelling history of one of Paris’s greatest fashion houses, but also constitutes a milestone of book design in its own right.