Fashion books are great resources for designers as well as fashion students because they are not only textbooks of how garments should be designed and made, but also many times covering wide range of designers in one book, or successfully showing works from the entire period of a designer's career. Here are four books we love to go back often when we need an inspiration, or a time to relax without thinking what we should finish by tomorrow.



This book is absolutely one of our favorites. It is basically made of the runway photo shots from each and every collection of McQueen's, and it would probably be the best way to show the designer's sensational, dramatic works of shapes, colors, materials, and patterns.

Title: Alexander McQueen, Genius of a Generation
Author: Kristin Knox





One great thing about this book is that it really shows details of the incredible works by the designer. This book contains so many interesting images and stories, and would be a great book to own whether you are in fashion industry or not.

Title: Valentino, Themes and Variations
Author: Pamela Golbin






The dresses in this book are from the Brooklyn Museum Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the book has quite a good amount of works by American designers which include Charles James (about 22 wonderful pieces by him).


Title: High Style
Author: the Metropolitan Museum of Art


This book is all about variety. It tries to cover all of the most famed designers we can think of to showcase a brief modern history of the dressmaking. Having said that, this book is very well edited, and it is probably thanks to the vast collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some of our favorite dresses in this book are the ones by Christian Lacroix, Emanuel Ungaro, John Galliano, and Vivienne Westwood.


Title: 100 Dresses
Author: the Metropolitan Museum of Art