Fashion House

On the morning of March 27, 1995, four quick shots cracked through Milan’s elegant streets. Maurizio Gucci, heir to the fabulous fashion dynasty, had been ambushed, slain on the steps to his office by an unknown gunman. Two years later, Milan’s chief of police entered the sumptuous palazzo of Maurizio’s ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani - nicknamed “the Black Widow” by the press - and arrested her for the murder. Did Patrizia kill her ex-husband because his spending was wildly out of control? Or is it possible Patrizia didn’t do it at all?

Versace. The very name conjures up images of outrageous glamour and bold sexuality, opulence and daring. All of course true, but only half the story. Versace is also the legacy of a great creative genius from a poor, backward part of southern Italy who transformed the fashion world through his intuitive understanding of both women and how a changing culture influenced the way they wanted to dress. House of Versace shows how Gianni Versace, with his flamboyant sister Donatella at his side, combined his virtuosic talent and extraordinary ambition to help create celebrity culture.

Revised and updated. This book is a compilation of over a year of writing on homemaking, creating household budgets, buying a home on one income, and the very beginnings of backyard farming in a small city. It is from a blog that was created to inspire and share life as a housewife and mother and ways to do it all in the easiest and most enjoyable way possible. It is about mixing the delights of the modern life with the slower pace of the old fashioned to create balance and heart in the home and with the family.

Evie, Countess of Woodridge, is on a mission to rescue her favorite modiste from the consequences of an unfavorable review. Her quest is a timely diversion as her granny, Toodles, appears to be suffering from a case of restlessness. All goes well until Evie's public clash with the journalist responsible for the article is followed by the journalist's death. The circumstances are suspicious and the police is warning Evie to stay away from the case. While she is happy to comply with the detective's request, the killer has other ideas and goes one step too far . . .

Paris 1925: When news reporter Abigail Dixon trades the Chicago newsroom for the Paris fashion scene, she finds herself dazzled by the latest looks from Coco Chanel, sipping champagne at the Ritz, and interviewing a famous designer. Stepping into his luxurious atelier on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Abigail is ready to swoon over the exquisite gowns. The last thing she expects to find is her estranged stepmother lying dead on the fitting room floor–and Abigail framed as the prime suspect.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three visionaries who took great risks, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.

Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that. Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven.

Global superstar Dolly Parton shares, for the first time, the full story behind her lifelong passion for fashion, including how she developed her own, distinctly Dolly style, which has defied convention and endeared her to fans around the world. Featuring behind-the-scenes stories from Dolly Parton’s life and career, this audiobook spotlights her most unforgettable looks from the 1960s to now. T

With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time.

Kathryn Tucker Windham begins this montage of stories with the sounds of summer and ends with a joyful Christmas memory. The mixture of tales, from the mouth-watering description of good Southern food to the story of a governor more familiar with Tom Sawyer than Tom Jefferson, comes together to evoke the image of a happy childhood.

Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.

During André Leon Talley’s first magazine job, alongside Andy Warhol at Interview, a fateful meeting with Karl Lagerfeld began a decades-long friendship with the enigmatic, often caustic designer. Propelled into the upper echelons by his knowledge and adoration of fashion, André moved to Paris as bureau chief of John Fairchild’s Women’s Wear Daily, befriending fashion's most important designers (Halston, Yves Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta). But as André made friends, he also made enemies.

Scouted by a modeling agent when she was just sixteen years old, Cameron Russell first approached her job with some reservations: She was a serious student with her sights set on college, not the runway. But modeling was a job that seemed to offer young women like herself unprecedented access to wealth, fame, and influence. Besides, as she was often reminded, “there are a million girls in line” who would eagerly replace her.

En los dorados años veinte, Fanny está cansada de las anticuadas prendas que se venden en los almacenes de su familia y quiere comenzar una nueva vida en París como diseñadora. Pero allí solo tendrá éxito como modelo, e incluso ese sueño estallará en pedazos. En 1946 su hija Lisbeth lucha por su supervivencia en Fráncfort, una ciudad totalmente asolada tras los bombardeos, y por la casa de modas de sus antepasados. Su ingenio le permitirá conducir el negocio a una nueva época, aunque para ello deberá pagar un precio muy alto. Para Rieke, en 1971, el amor es más importante que los negocios.

Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style."

France, 1942 Once, Paulette Leblanc spent her days flirting, shopping and drawing elegant dresses in her sketch pad. Then German tanks rolled into France, and a reckless romance turned into deep betrayal. Blaming herself for her mother’s arrest by the Gestapo, Paulette is sent away to begin a new life in Paris, working as apprentice to fashion designer Sabine Ballard. But Maison de Ballard is no ordinary fashion house. While seamstresses create the perfect couture gowns, clandestine deals and secrets take place out of sight.

From an early age, there was something different about Tommy and David Nutter. Growing up in an austere apartment above a café catering to truck drivers, both boys seemed destined to lead rather humble lives in postwar London - Tommy as a civil servant, David as a darkroom technician. Yet the strength of their imagination (plus a little help from their friends) transformed them instead into unlikely protagonists of a swinging cultural revolution.

As editor-in-chief of New York's leading fashion magazine, Fiona Monaghan was utterly content with her life, jetting back and forth between Manhattan and Europe, until the sweltering day John Anderson strolled into her office.

An intimate biography of Richard Avedon, the legendary fashion and portrait photographer who “helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture” (The New York Times) by his longtime collaborator and business partner Norma Stevens and award-winning author Steven M. L. Aronson.

In Project 333, minimalist expert and author of Soulful Simplicity Courtney Carver takes a new approach to living simply - starting with your wardrobe. Project 333 promises that not only can you survive with just 33 items in your closet for three months, but you'll thrive just like the thousands of woman who have taken on the challenge and never looked back. Let the decluttering begin!