Nothing beats a good book. Our favourite LFW designers share with The Daily their summer reads, consider it the official LFW reading list, you saw it here first!
lou dalton
“I’m reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and I loveeeeeeee it. I have read this a 100 times and will never tire of reading it. A troubled love story written in 1846, the story centres around Heathcliffe & Catherine Earnshaw and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them. It is a thought provoking emotinal roller coaster (a bit like fashion) I often get asked, “Is there a Lou Dalton muse?” Well Heathcliffe comes pretty damn close. I am obsessed with him, obsessed…..
It’s such a powerful piece of literature to be written by a woman at that time, it was condemned for its portrayal of amoral passion…… I give it 5/5″
maria francesca pepe
“Books I have read lately include The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, Storia Della Bellezza (History of beauty) by Umberto Eco and The Art Of Happiness by Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler. Here I’m reading Elizabeth’s Women by Tracy Borman.”
Mr start
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
“It’s a historical biography about the American ambassador to Berlin in the early 1930s and his relationship with the rising Hitler government and his daughter who had numerous affairs with both the Nazis and a Russian, who could have been a spy. It makes for an historical book that feels like a novel. I rate it 4.5 / 5″
paul costelloe
“My book of the moment is ‘The Scramble for China’ by Robert Bickers. It gives a wonderfully detailed and personal view on the foreign presence in China from the mid-19th century onwards and provides some insightful answers into why China is what it is today. It makes sure you won’t look at the Bund in Shanghai in the same way again. I rate it 5/5.”
peter jensen
rupert sanderson
“Technically ambitious (one chapter is entirely in Powerpoint slides!), dark, funny and tender – it is also the book that pipped Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Freedom’ for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the States so must be good. I loved it!”
teatum jones
“Richard Yates’ ‘Revolutionary Road’ and Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’…..
We would give both books a huge 5 out of 5! Exquisitely written and present characters that are painfully true to real life. We drew so much inspiration from the characters of April Wheeler and Esther Greenwood, in particular their attitude to marriage, creative ambitions and society’s expectations of the male and female roles in 1950’s American suburbia. What is most intriguing is the struggle between the emotions the female characters actually experience and the emotions they are socially permitted to display. A seemingly common symptom of those swept up by the idea of a perfect suburban life, a lifestyle that was essentially designed to keep reality at bay.”
alice temperley
“I know I probably shouldn’t talk about my own book – but I am so proud of it after working on it for two years. It is launching this October 4th and is entitled True British. True British tells the story of Temperley London from the start, it is a very open, honest and personal diary of ten years. Showing the hard work and fun from year one with a vast amount of eclectic and visual material. It covers everything from my background, my first ever collection, developments of the work over the years, as well as anecdotes and observations from friends and people within the industry. It shows a labour of love, is very detail focused, tactile and visually engaging. I hope people like it and can see where the passion started that built all that is Temperley London today.”
bora aksu
The Ossie Clark Diaries – Edited by Lady Henrietta Rous
“The book contains Ossie Clark’s personal diaries from 1974 up until he was murdered by his boyfriend in 1996. It’s a deeply upsetting set of diaries to read - how out of such beauty and creativity could come such hardship in later life”. Bora gives this 5/5.
christian blanken
“I picked this book up at the Strand bookstore during my last visit to NYC. I always tend to go for biographies particularly of people who have had especially tragic and destructive lifespans and Truman Capote certainly fits the bill. As a biography it is really insightful as the author Gerald Clarke managed to befriend Truman Capote and was a nearly constant presence in writers life in his final years of decline. Capote himself was of course a hugely talented man on many levels. He was a first rate writer and socialite as well as an extremely astute observer of the very rarefied circles he revolved in and it is this aspect which was interesting to me while I was preparing the new SS12 collection as it is based on appropriate wardrobes and impeccable dressing and was inspired in part by the Swans (Slim Keith, Babe Paley, Marella Agnelli and Gloria Vanderbilt) who were all so famously betrayed by Capote in “La Cote Basque” and were all known for their amazing wardrobes and impeccable taste.
I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 and am enjoying reading it a lot.”
