The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion »

Harold Koda is Curator in Charge at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the author of many fashion books including Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed, Chanel, and Poiret, all available from Yale. Kohle Yohannan is an independent curator and the author of Claire McCardell and John Rawlings: 30 Years in Vogue.

Model as Muse explores fashion’s reciprocal relationship to iconic beauties that represent the evolution and changing face of the feminine ideal. Featuring a brief historical overview of the phenomenon of the supermodel, the book begins in the early 20th century and continues to the present day. Dorian Leigh and Lisa Fonssagrives in the 1940s are joined in the 1950s by Dovima, Sunny Harnett, and Suzy Parker. They are followed by Jean “The Shrimp” Shrimpton and Twiggy in the 1960s and Lauren Hutton in the 1970s. The 1980s witnessed such enduring personalities as Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, and Linda Evangelista, while the 1990s brought on Kate Moss, whose edgy, street-inflected style has inspired not only fashion designers, editors, stylists, and photographers, but artists such as Chuck Close and Lucien Freud.

With an emphasis on styles from the 1950s onward, the book features designs from the great ready-to-wear and couture houses—Madame Grès, Christian Dior, and Balenciaga in the 1950s; Rudi Gernreich, Yves Saint Laurent, and Cardin in the 1960s; Giorgio di Sant’Angelo and Halston in the 1970s; Christian Lacroix, Versace, Comme des Garcons, and Calvin Klein in the 1980s; and Marc Jacobs, John Galliano, and Alexander McQueen in the 1990s.

Library Journal

With an emphasis on styles from the 1950s onward, Koda (Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed) and Yohannan (John Rawlings: 30 Years in Vogue) explore how the fashion industry's feminine ideal has evolved over the last few decades. This companion to the summer 2009 exhibition (sponsored by designer Marc Jacobs and publisher Condé Nast) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art begins in 1947 with the "New Look," created by Christian Dior, and evolves as the particular beauty of models like Dorian Leigh, Twiggy, Naomi Campbell, and Kate Moss—enhanced in the media by photographers and fashion—came to define feminine beauty. The oversized book includes 115 important fashion photographs enhanced with text providing brief glimmers of the lives behind these famous faces. VERDICT A glossy and admiring look at the last half century of fashion imagery through its most iconic models and the styles they personified. For anyone who loves fashion photography.—Nancy Turner, Syracuse Univ. Lib., NY