Product Description

In 1954 they were two young talents from the provinces, both dreaming of Paris, glamour and glory. Yves Saint Laurent was the charmed youth, the enfant terrible inheritor of Dior's couture crown. Karl Lagerfeld was the freelance designer with a talent for ready-to-wear. Seemingly from a background of wealth and privilege, he was in fact a tireless workaholic, driven by his passion for capturing the pose of the moment. Then 1968 happened and Paris exploded like a champagne bottle left in the sun. The city embraced liberation and hedonism, making up for years of post-war insecurity. It was a decade dominated by intrigue, infidelities and addiction - and parties. Each designer created his own mesmerising world, drawing towards them people attracted by their power, charisma and fame. Loulou de la Falaise, Paloma Picasso, Pierre Berge and Jacques de Bascher were all living in the mirror of fashion. The tensions of class and nationality, bohemia and luxury, youth and yearning, talent and ambition were subsumed in the creation of glamour. The two cliques could not help but become rivals. But as the 70s turned to the 80s, heroin and Aids cast their shadow; fashion became an industry, money prevailed and the beautiful people discovered the danger of living their dreams. The Beautiful Fall is Alicia Drake's brilliant chronicle of this dangerous, brazen, fabulous time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #286351 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-18
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Independent on Sunday, 24 September 2006
`Gripping account of the rivalry between Yves Saint Laurent and
Karl Lagerfeld in Seventies Paris.'

Gay Times, 1 October 2006
`Men wore make-up, students rioted... Drake looks at how the Paris
fashion world was...the centre of newfound gay confidence.'

Gay Times, 1 October 2006
`TBF has been researched with the vigour of an academic tome but
there's plenty in it for the casual reader.'

Customer Reviews

Karl may sue, but it's worth it.
Despite its naysayers (then again who listens to Colin McDowell these days?), this book is fascinating, exquisitely constructed, painstakingly researched and most importantly, absoutely fascinating. It details a much-overlooked time in fashion history when boundaries were redrawn and playing-fields levelled, the old guard crumbled and upstarts leapt to take their places. Many people could have baulked at the task, but Drake's account is grounded by tight, succinct analysis which just the correct degreee of all-encompassing passion. Her study is focussed without being blinkered, packed with extreme detail and bon mots which suffer none in the retelling. The chronological structure of the book is exactly right - indeed, everything is almost a textbook example of how to write a fashion history. Essentially, this will only appeal to those with an existing interest in fashion (I Feel). However, it is better served by those with a burning interest who can appreciate the insightful detail and often contoversial opinions so skillfully wrought by Drake.

My purple prose isn't good enough. If you're thinking about buying it, please please do. It's worth every hard-earned hardback penny.