Love a good book and are obsessed with fashion? Then here are five great fashion reads for you. 

Kiwiana:
Home Sewn, Penguin, $45

New Zealanders are known for their DIY attitude, and editor Doris de Pont celebrates this with ten Kiwi designers. Company of Strangers, Cybèle, Katie-maree Cole, Lela Jacobs, Papercut, Starfish, TK Store, twenty-seven names, Vaughan Geeson and WORLD each share a pattern from one of their collections, and show you step-by-step how to recreate it yourself. With gorgeous colour photographs, simple instructions and how-to tutorials, Home Sewn is the perfect book for budding fashion designers or keen home sewers.
 
On design:
Pleats Please: Issey Miyake, Taschen, $75, available in September.

They've become one of the most widely recognised garments in the world, and every fashionista has a piece or two in their wardrobe. Issey Miyake's Pleats Please collections were first launched in 1993 and took the fashion world by storm. Issey Miyake's innovative process of heat pressing polyester fabric resulted in clothing that was sculptural, textural, and above all easy to wear, wash and store. The book tells the story of this revolutionary process from the first idea through to product development and public reception. Featuring essays and stunning imagery, this book is a must for lovers of Japanese design.

For the coffee table:
Fashion Ads of the 20th Century - Taschen $49.99

This hysterical coffee table book tracks back through the last 100 years of fashion advertising. From low rise jeans to breath-catching corsets, this book touches on some of fashion's biggest, baddest and boldest moments of the 20th century. Laid out in a 365 day, year to year format, it's full of famous fashion quotes, illustrations and the birthdays of famous fashion icons.

The thinkers edition:
Roland Barthes: The language of Fashion - Berg/Power publications, $150

Roland Barthes, widely regarded as one of the most perceptive critics of the twentieth century, was particularly fascinated by fashion and clothing. This book - translated for the first time into English - brings together some of Barthes best writings on the subject of fashions, clothing and identity. Ranging from essays on the significance of jewellery to an exploration of Chanel, this is a great read for deep fashion thinkers.

Anglomania:
Fashion; A century of British Fashion Couture in Pictures, Ammonite Press, $29.99

This book is a visual record of British habit of dress from Victorian gowns to the Spice Girls, tedddy boys to footy hooligans. Five hundred images from the MirrorPix archives take you through a journey of British fashion from the catwalks to local street style.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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