An astute exploration of the most outrageous shoe designs of the 21st century

This fabulously illustrated book explores western culture’s fascination with extravagant and fashionable shoes. Over the past decade, shoe design has become increasingly central to fashion, with fashion companies paying ever more attention to shoes and other accessories. High-heeled shoes, in particular, have become the fashion accessory of the 21st century.

Co-written by one of the world’s leading historians of fashion and an authority on fashion accessories, the book features approximately 150 pairs of the most extreme and ultra-fashionable styles of the past 12 years, including work by such prominent designers as Manolo Blahnik, Pierre Hardy, Christian Louboutin and Bruno Frisoni for Roger Vivier, as well as shoes by influential design houses such as Azzedine Alaïa, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, and Prada. Avant-garde styles by up-and-coming designers such as Japan’s Kei Kagami and Noritaka Tatehana are also highlighted.

Shoe Obsession examines recent extreme and fantastical shoe styles in relation to the history of high heels, the role of shoes as a reflection of their wearers’ personality traits, and the importance of shoes in art and exhibitions. The book is lavishly illustrated with full-colour photographs of spectacular contemporary shoe designs.

About the Authors:

Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. Colleen Hill is curator of costume and accessories at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York.

Nineties fashion-from grunge, to Clueless's Alaïa, to Margiela's new couture-is an essential reference point for contemporary style. This book, created in tandem with an exhibition at The Museum at FIT, documents the changing culture, attitudes, and creatives that ushered in our visual age.

Minimalism. Deconstruction. The rejuvenation of established houses. These are just a few of the concepts that have come to define 1990s fashion. Others include an increased concern with environmentalism, developing technologies and the beginning of the fashion internet, freewheeling historical references, and a predilection for lifting significant styles from other cultures (the issues raised by this 'borrowing' are reviewed through a contemporary lens). In the twenty years since the decade ended, the fashion world has experienced several nineties revivals.

Reinvention and Restlessness: Fashion in the 90s focuses specifically on designers who challenged the expected appearance or workings of high fashion, and who played an important role in laying the foundation for fashion of the twenty-first century, including: Tom Ford, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Martin Margiela, Stella McCartney, Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, and Viktor & Rolf. Additional chapters address changes to fashion editorials and campaigns (under talents like Steven Meisel, Corinne Day, Inez & Vinoodh, Mark Borthwick, and Nan Goldin), a new theatricality to runway presentations, and the emergence of fashion theory as a field.

About the Author:

Colleen Hill is curator of costume and accessories at The Museum at FIT, New York. Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT and founding editor of Fashion Theory. Patricia Mears is deputy director of The Museum at FIT. Shonagh Marshall is a curator, writer, and arts consultant with a specialization in fashion and contemporary culture based in New York City.

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Fashion Masterclass. Defining design of the 20th and 21st centuries

From Azzedine Alaïa and Coco Chanel to Alexander McQueen and Yves Saint Laurent, celebrate over a century’s worth of fashion greats. This updated edition, expanded to include 15 new labels, highlights some 500 garments in the permanent collection of The Museum at FIT in New York City. Features texts by the Museum’s director and chief curator Valerie Steele, international style authority Suzy Menkes, and portraits by Robert Nippoldt.

From Azzedine Alaïa, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and Coco Chanel to Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, and Vivienne Westwood, more than a century’s worth of fashion greats from the permanent collection of The Museum at FIT in New York City are celebrated in this fresh edition of Fashion Designers A–Z.

15 new names join the ranks of the industry’s most admired — Phoebe Philo, Patrick Kelly, and Sonia Rykiel, to name a few — in this updated and expanded release showcasing some 500 garments in the Museum’s permanent collection. From an exquisitely embroidered velvet evening gown to Mondrian-influenced minimalist chic, each piece has been selected and photographed not only for its beauty, but for its representative value, distilling the unique philosophy and aesthetics of each of the featured designers.

In her introductory essay, the Museum’s director and chief curator Valerie Steele writes about the rise of the fashion museum, and the emergence of the fashion exhibition as a popular and controversial phenomenon. International style authority Suzy Menkes contributes a foreword, texts by the museum’s curators shine historical light on each label and garment pictured, and 125 drawn portraits by artist Robert Nippoldt pay homage to the creators behind them.

The editors:

Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT and founding editor of Fashion Theory. Described in The Washington Post as one of “fashion’s brainiest women” and by Suzy Menkes as “the Freud of fashion,” Steele combines serious scholarship (and a Yale Ph.D.) with a rare ability to communicate with general audiences. As author, curator, editor, and public intellectual, Steele has been instrumental in creating the modern field of fashion studies.

Colleen Hill is curator of costume and accessories at The Museum at FIT. She has curated more than a dozen exhibitions, including Paris Refashioned, 1957-1968 and Fairy Tale Fashion, authored or co-authored six books on fashion, and contributed to numerous other publications.

The contributing author:

Unquestionably a leader in the global fashion press, Suzy Menkes is International Vogue Editor at Condé Nast International. Her work appears on the websites of 23 international editions of Vogue in 16 languages. She is also a leading Instagram influencer. Among the world’s most influential fashion critics, she is an officer of the Order of the British Empire as well as a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. She lives and works in London and Paris. @SuzyMenkesVogue

The illustrator:

Robert Nippoldt is a German graphic designer, illustrator, and book artist. He is best known for his award-winning books Gangster, Jazz and Hollywood about America in the 1920s and 1930s. His studio is located at the very hip old depot of Muenster.