Narrative Thread

“I adored this book and can’t recommend it highly enough” – Cathy Horyn
“Beautifully executed” – Norma Kamali
“A visual feast” – Giles Deacon
“Entertaining, thought-provoking, and serious. Read it and learn.” – Colin McDowell

"Clothes from our past shape who we are, and who we will be. Why do we hold on to certain garments and what do they tell us and others about our lives?"

Mark C. O’Flaherty asks 14 individuals who work with or use clothes in a unique way: how has fashion created something significant in your life? Through fascinating conversations, and photoshoots of their private collections, in New York, London and Milan, he constructs a portrait of each person through their intimate relationships with fashion, featuring The Idiosyncratic Fashionistas, Charlie Casely-Hayford, John Matheson (McQueen Vault), Sandy Powell, Stephen Jones, Carla Sozzani, Winn Austin, Carmen Haid, Susanne Bartsch, Karlo Steel, Karim Rashid, Steven Philip, and Desmond is Amazing.

How have these people used fashion as a vessel for memory or identity to develop their own narratives, and what does our relationship with clothing say about its changing nature as a commodity? With a foreword by influential fashion tastemaker Amanda Harlech, and opening conversations with three of fashion’s most respected scholars, Valerie Steele, Andre Walker and Claire Wilcox, Narrative Thread is an eye-opening resource for our understanding of fashion’s past and present – and its continuing importance in our lives.