50 Women's Fashion Icons That Changed the World by Laura Cochrane

50 Women’s Fashion Icons That Changed the World
by Laura Cochrane [746.92 Coc] 

I’ll have to admit — I’m certainly not a devotee of women’s fashion. But the snarling and iconic visage of Grace Jones on the cover of this slender little volume caught my attention and made me curious. And I’m glad I snagged this book…it turned out to be fascinating reading!
Author Lauren Cochrane is a London-based fashion journalist, who compiled this volume on behalf of the Design Museum. In it, Cochrane profiles 50 different women who have had significant roles in shaping the clothing preferences of women from the 1920s to the 2010s (with one earlier example, in the form of Queen Victoria in 1847). Each woman gets two pages — one of straight-forward text, describing that woman’s impact on fashion, and what were her “signature” fashion elements, and the other a full-page photo of that woman in her “look”. Some of these women were designers, some were fashion models, some were performers (actresses, singers, etc.) and some were important for other historical reasons. But they all had an impact on what was the “in” look for women in their era.
Examples of some of the fashion icons include: Josephine Baker, Katherine Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy, Patti Smith, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Pam Grier, Debbie Harry, Diana Vreeland, Grace Jones, Princess Diana, Kate Moss, Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Tilda Swinton and Anna Wintour, to name just a few.

This isn’t a heavy, comprehensive volume — it’s a light, quick read. But if you’ve ever been even in the slightly bit curious about women’s fashion and design culture, and the movers and shakers in that field, this is a fun little read!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to seek out additional volumes in this series, including the Men’s Fashion Icons volume.]

[ official The Design Museum web site ] | [ publisher’s official “Fifty ___ That Changed the World” web pages ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!