Fashion Books & their Coveted Covers

By Rashmi Hemrajani

Honesty, information and fashion, fused profoundly, can only create book covers that ooze creativity and grab the attention of literature aficionados. We pick 3 interesting fashion book covers and why we like them…

Year 2012 has added to Indian fashion history:  from designers celebrating 25 years, a fashion journalist recording the history of Indian fashion and a designer writing his fashion memoir. Apart from India, too, many books released across the globe have recorded the style story impeccably this year.

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Powder Room by Shefalee Vasudev

Having interviewed over 300 people for this book, including people in small towns and big cities, well-established designers, shop assistants, struggling and successful models and tailors, Shefalee reveals statistics in the book that explain the dynamics propelling the fashion market in India to the levels where it is today and beyond.

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Thus the cover depicting a lady with black powder smudged all over her forehead and eyes, signifies the illusions created by the paparazzi about the fashion fraternity.   

The Green Room by Wendell Rodricks

 ‘The Green Room’ has a gorgeous cover page – a black and white picture of Malaika Arora Khan in Wendell Rodricks’ famous mussel top, flattered by the stark yellow spine of the book, as if capturing candour through coded colour.

Photograph: Courtesy Wendell Rodricks

A memoir by the designer about his life, his many passions and of course, the industry, as he completes 25 years of being in the business, the book cover is significant metaphorically as it now depicts to the world a very candid shot of the lady taken way back in 1997!

The photograph was taken from his first solo show, informs Wendell; further stating how it has obviously been the best; and is ecstatic that it made a perfect fit with the title of his memoir.

Tim Gunn’s Fashion Bible

An American fashion consultant and television personality, Tim is well known as on-air mentor to designers on the reality television program Project Runway; and this book is a must-read for all fashion aspirants.

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The book is a good resource on the basics of fashion history, classic style, current do’s and don’ts, and how to assess your closet in order to put yourself in good fashion order. It is filled with illustrations, pictures, interesting history and trivia, as well as details that represent many an era, a designer, a trend, and how, as in life, what goes around comes around.

The cover screams authority!

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From a peep into a mindset to not really telling anything at all, the 3 book covers are starkly compelling, through simple straightforward imagery and text, allowing the viewer’s mind to weave its own web of intrigue as it mulls over each of them – the title and the author.

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Photographs: Courtesy World Wide Web