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A review by nickolette
Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano by Dana Thomas
5.0
It became like a little night routine - tucked in bed, me showing him a fashion show, one of the many I have encountered in the book throughout the day, either by McQueen or Galliano, but mostly McQueen as his collections were more poignant and concrete in their messages.
Aside from the childhood narratives in the beginning, the book is structured around the collections. The author, Dana Thomas, leads with the inspirations for the clothes, follows the creative process and describes the more notable pieces and the logistics before and at the day of the production. The small extracts from the reviews after the shows give us perspective how they were perceived at the time and where in their careers John and Lee were. We also get introduced to the inner circles of the designers and from there a plethora of characters opens up, as famous as Anna Wintour, Kate Moss, Lady D, as peculiar as Isabella Blow and Daphne Guinness, deep fashion people like Amanda Harlech and Andre Leon Talle, and obscure ones like Steven Robinson or Harumi Klossowska de Rola. A google search on any of these launches us down a rabbit hole of fascinating lives interconnected and branching out to endless cultural, business and political figures and events, and if you go back - to aristocratic family trees closer to fairy-tales than reality. If this is how you read the book, it is going to take ages.
http://slpssm.blogspot.com/
Aside from the childhood narratives in the beginning, the book is structured around the collections. The author, Dana Thomas, leads with the inspirations for the clothes, follows the creative process and describes the more notable pieces and the logistics before and at the day of the production. The small extracts from the reviews after the shows give us perspective how they were perceived at the time and where in their careers John and Lee were. We also get introduced to the inner circles of the designers and from there a plethora of characters opens up, as famous as Anna Wintour, Kate Moss, Lady D, as peculiar as Isabella Blow and Daphne Guinness, deep fashion people like Amanda Harlech and Andre Leon Talle, and obscure ones like Steven Robinson or Harumi Klossowska de Rola. A google search on any of these launches us down a rabbit hole of fascinating lives interconnected and branching out to endless cultural, business and political figures and events, and if you go back - to aristocratic family trees closer to fairy-tales than reality. If this is how you read the book, it is going to take ages.
http://slpssm.blogspot.com/