READ THIS: CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVAS KATE MOSS, MARC JACOBS, ALEXANDER MCQUEEN AND THE 90s RENEGADES WHO REMADE FASHION By Maureen Callahan Our Coverage Sponsored by Paul Mayer Attitudes
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The hottest book about fashion that's debuted recently without a doubt is Champagne Supernovas, which is winning a triple feature in Read This, Fashion Alert, and Champagne Wishes (our alcohol column...we switch between Champagne and The Peachy Deegan, which thanks to one phenomenal Mover and Shaker will be making its literary debut shortly). We'll include London too. The title clearly is a nod to the Oasis song, and Maureen Callahan pens a well-thought-out tale of three monumental icons of fashion that all made it big around the same time.
It's a bittersweet moment, reading about Alexander McQueen after his early departure from his fashionable vale of tears, but this is an important book for followers of popular culture. If you read Yale University Press's Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty by Andrew Bolton of The Met, or Isabella Blow by Martina Rink you will love this book. The McQueen exhibit at The Met set records, and Peachy Deegan took pictures of the lines. It is still the best fashion exhibit we've seen and we surmise many would concur.
If you'd like to go back in time with us to the press preview for the exhibit,
here's what Alexander McQueen Creative Director Sarah Burton said:
You'll also remember the exhibit debuted right around the time of the Royal Wedding when Kate Middleton wore McQueen.
Here's what Stella McCartney said:
The beauty of the internet...you couldn't go back and pull video if you were reading a newspaper!
When we search "Alexander McQueen" it nearly jams our inbox. So we were fabulously excited to see a new layer of this illustrious late designer emerge from the research and writing of Callahan. She did an awful lot of work here. The Met put McQueen with Moss in this part of the exhibit (click to see hologram.) And we know we've seen Marc Jacobs with Anna Wintour at the Costume Institute Press Previews...so Callahan accurately called the subject matter: they obviously are related! She opens with a lovely quote by Linda.
A revisitation of the '90's, this book's a clearcut cultural odyssey. Club kids abounded in the '80's and 90's. Before that the name hadn't stuck. The star stratosphere was always filled with celebritites and wannabees, but in the 1990's, things shifted a bit. The people who brought about that shift warrant documentation, and Ms. Callahan has done it for us in her book. We did cry a bit during the fall of prep during the book, but we wore it then, before then and now but also appreciate the trends that these three icons brought forth.
Hearing the gritty, truthful, personal stories of Kate, Lee and Marc will bring the reader new understanding of what it takes to really make it, and how much adversity one must overcome. They each struggled with personal demons that you may not have known of, and Callahan addresses each with sensitivity and straightforwardness. However, we were sad to learn that McQueen was not interested in proper grammar! (p. 14) There's a nice Joan Rivers reference in relation to Marc Jacobs, and we learned Kate had quite the 30th birthday party and we applaud her Fitzgerald theme choice. The sadder moments are it's clear that once you make it, not many may have your best interests at heart and look after you (p. 213).
We were happy to see Mover and Shaker Michael Musto quoted (p.36), and appreciated Kate's candid nature about how no one takes care of you mentally. (p.69) One of the more entertaining stories is on page 107 which occurs a few days after "Highland Rape" [fashion show by McQueen] when Lee receives a call from American Vogue, wanting an item.
"'That dress cost us seven pounds,' Andrew Groves says. "We paid three pounds a meter for the fabric and then we paid one pound for the spray paint.' Anna Wintour hadn't been to any of McQueen's shows, and McQueen didn't like it. McQueen said American Vogue could borrow the dress only if they flew it to New York and back, in its own seat, with an escort."
We're glad to say this book is not a tell-all, but a pacing through the worlds of London fashionables, and the world of fashion in general as she tells about Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, and our dearly loved Alexander McQueen. For those of you already immersed in this world, you need this book. For the graduate students planning their theses around the House of McQueen, it's required reading. And even if you're an innocent bystander of this glittery, golden world, you'll appreciate the inside stories, and the point of view. It's important to understand how popular culture shapes our world, and how it influences not just fashion, but economics, art, and design. It's a language unto itself, and not everyone speaks it so freely as others. Come and read, for a different take on things.
Champagne Supernovas by Maureen Callahan is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know. Two thumbs up from Peachy Deegan, with her tongue out back at Kate!
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Touchstone is pleased to present CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVAS: KATE MOSS, MARC JACOBS, ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, AND THE 90s RENEGADES WHO REMADE FASHION, from New York Post writer and editor Maureen Callahan. Through the lives of three visionaries who exemplified this influential time, CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVAS tells the history of Gen X’s coming of age in the 1990’s through fashion and culture.
As influential as rock n’ roll was to the `50s, the psychedelics were in the `60s, punk was in the `70s, and modern art was in the `80s, fashion defined `90s culture. Throughout the `80s, glamazons like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford ruled the scene, but when Gen X stormed the fashion industry at the beginning of the decade, three new groundbreaking personalities emerged: Kate Moss, the short, foul-mouthed model who became famous not only for her up-from-the-street style, but also for her wanton drug use and promiscuous sex life; she remains the most influential style icon in the industry to date. Marc Jacobs, the young, beautiful prince of New York City, anointed early on, who quickly became the laughingstock of his generation. And Lee Alexander McQueen, the talented, physically imposing punk-rebel who insisted the fashion industry come to him. Starting out with little in common besides their reject status, these three luminaries came to represent a moment in fashion and pop culture that upended everything that came before it, and by the end of the decade these “outsiders” were themselves, the establishment.
The rise of McQueen, Moss, and Jacobs represented not only a shift in fashion, but also signified a larger change in the culture of art, style, and commerce. As the decade wore on, the alternative became the mainstream—and the mainstream became big business. This generational rebellion had real-world effects beyond the runway as these major players changed global pop culture on the cusp of the millennium. In examining the greater economic and cultural influences of the time, CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVAS is as much about an overhaul of the multi-billion-dollar global fashion business as it is a genuine art and cultural movement.
In her fresh, no-holds-barred look at this exciting decade in fashion—and the larger-than-life characters who made it legendary—Callahan includes original interviews with designers like Anna Sui, Isaac Mizrahi, and Tracy Reese, scenesters such as Kim Gordon and her X-girl collaborator Daisy von Furth, and models like Erin O’Connor and Plum Sykes—who herself became a Vogue contributor and a close friend of McQueen’s. Through these close connections, Callahan also explores some of their biggest scandals, and explores many looming questions, such as: Why does Marc Jacobs remain estranged from his family? What really initiated Kate’s downward spiral as the `90s progressed…and what brought her back from the brink? Did the fashion houses know about McQueen and Jacobs’ extreme drug use, and were they in on it?
CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVAS rips open the debauched soap opera of `90s fashion in a way that it’s never been done before, and I hope that you feature it in your fall 2014 books coverage.
Champagne Supernovas: Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and the 90s Renegades Who Remade Fashion
400 pages
Hardcover: 9781476763149
EBook: 9781451640595
About the author:
Maureen Callahan has worked as an editor and writer at the New York Post, covering everything from the subcultures of the Lower East Side to local and national politics. She has also written for Spin, New York, Vanity Fair, and Sassy. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
About Touchstone
Touchstone is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., part of the CBS Corporation. Simon & Schuster is a global leader in the field of general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for consumers of all ages, across all printed, electronic and multi-media formats. Its divisions include the Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, Simon & Schuster Audio, Simon & Schuster Digital, and international companies in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com
