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13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 The Best Fashion Book Jul 28, 2000
This is without a doubt the best fashion book ever written. Not only are designers in this book, but also fashion illustrators, editors, and icons. The work and time put into this book must have been unbelievable, and to charge such a low price. The book is definately worth the price, and much much more. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in fashion, at any level.
24 of 27 found the following review helpful:
 The Most Ambitious Fashion Summary Ever Nov 04, 2000
By Donald Mitchell
"Jesus Loves You!"
This is the Reader's Digest Condensed version of the history of fashion over the last 150 years. Unlike Reader's Digest, this book succeeds in capturing the essence in amazing kernals of elegance, curve, design, and motion. Everyone who loves fashion should have this book. There is simply no substitute for it, and you will have many hours of pleasure looking at its exciting images and reading the descriptions. The book is a great value for its price, as well, which will help make it available to more people. The book is in a novel format, one page each for 500 icons, models, fashion and accessory designers, make-up artists, hairdressers, retailers, illustrators, and photographers done in alphabetical order. Each page typically has one person (a few have two), with one image, and one brief textual summary of the person's work. It is an amazing challenge to capture all of a person's work in one image, and some great successes occurred. Some of my favorites were Madonna, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Harry Winston, Naomi Campbell, Coco Chanel, Noel Coward, and Rudi Gernreich. On the other hand, some of the old black and white images did not reproduce well. Some of the worst examples are Antoine (a hairdresser with a photograph of Josephine Baker's hair), Maria-Louise Bruyere (a designer), Christian Dior, Max Factor, Barbara Goalen (a model), Gucci, and Hermes. In many cases, these choices appear to have been influenced by the desire to have the facing pages converse with one another. So you will see echoes of design, line, and style in these ways. I appreciate that effort (which is often quite eloquent), but it should not slight the individual whose work is being portrayed. I graded the book down one star for the compromises made here not working well in too many cases. After you have finished reading and enjoying this book many times, I suggest that you think about where else it would be helpful to have a similar work in your life. Perhaps a scrapbook containing photographs of all of your friends who have something in common would be a possibility. You could write a brief text about each. This could greatly add to your pleasure in remembering these friends, and perhaps expand their interaction when they see how you have put them together. Keep to the essence, but be bold!
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
one of the best fashion books i've seen in years Mar 18, 2000
By fashion book reader/looker
a fabulous book!brilliantly done from the past to the present,reconmended to all that love fashion. the pictures are clear and creative. well proportioned to each designer, little description yet just enough, if you like getting books with tons of great imagages this the book you want.*
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Great fashion book for the coffee table Oct 05, 2000
By Kristen Weiser
512 thick, glossy pages of fashion. Each page highlights a different person... Designers, models, icons, photographers, illustrators, milliners, cosmetic creators, tailors, etc. Each page has a brief paragraph or two describing the artists contributions, and below is a single large picture or illustration depicting the work of the artist. One of the more stunning fashion books I've seen. Quite impressive.
12 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Fashion history at its best Jun 08, 1999
A brilliant, spectacular, visually-entertaining compendium of the who's who in fashion, The Fashion Book has not failed my high expectations. Note the well-researched facts and pictures (which many fashion books are guilty of printing inexcusably inaccurate facts)that make it the perfect reference book. I particularly like how images documented capture the quintessential essence of the work of those highlighted, not necessarily those we have come to know through much-publicised ads and editorials. Kudos to Phaidon and the editorial team.
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