Gods and Kings
The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano
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- 9,49 €
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- 9,49 €
Description de l’éditeur
In Gods and Kings Dana Thomas, author of Deluxe, tells the story of how John Galliano and Alexander McQueen changed the face of fashion
In the first decade of the 21st century the fashion world was dominated by two very different but equally successful and turbulent figures. But, within twelve months, Alexander McQueen had committed suicide, and John Galliano had professionally imploded. Who was to blame? And how was fashion changed by their rise and fall? Spanning the 80s, 90s and noughties, Gods and Kings tells the story of these two charismatic figures and times of great change in the world of fashion, from London's raucous art and club scene to the old-world glamour of Parisian couture, and reveals the machinations of this notoriously secretive industry.
[Praise for Dana Thomas's Deluxe]:
'A crisp, witty social history that's as entertaining as it is informative' - New York Times
'Definitive' - Daily Telegraph
Dana Thomas began her career writing for the Style section of The Washington Post and served as Newsweek's European culture and fashion correspondent for fifteen years. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, WSJ, the Financial Times, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and was the European editor of Condé Nast Portfolio. She is a contributing editor for T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre. She lives in Paris.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fashion columnist Thomas (Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster) paints a grim portrait of the fashion industry in this dual biography of John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, two influential London-born designers who came of age in the world of high couture in the early aughts and whose careers hit critical tipping points with devastating results. "If Galliano was a Romantic, McQueen was a pornographer.... He accepted the brutality of human nature," writes Thomas, who rarely compares her two subjects so succinctly elsewhere in the book. Galliano suffers by comparison to McQueen, appearing the lesser and less likeable of the two talents. For all of his hard work and creative vision (not to mention the way he cut a dress on the bias and tailored a frock coat) Galliano seems dramatically out of touch with others, reacting with revulsion to people wearing sneakers on the London underground, and regarding himself as the paradigm of beauty "and everyone else as being ugly." McQueen is the book's more tragic talent, filled with self-hatred that fueled his spiral of depression, drug use, and ultimately self-annihilation. Despite this, the sections on McQueen are more upbeat and richly reported. While Thomas never strikes a fulfilling symmetry between her subjects, she nevertheless offers an alluring look at two edgy, gifted, famous individuals who famously burned out midcareer.
