Transcript: Why is fashion so into books right now?

This is an audio transcript of the Life and Art from FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Why is fashion so into books right now?’

Lulu Smyth
Welcome to Life and Art. I’m Lulu Smyth, in for Lilah Raptopoulos.

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What I’m about to say might sound absurd, but books are having a cultural moment right now. I don’t mean that we’re necessarily reading more, or that reading has outpaced, say, streaming movies or TV. What I mean is that books are fashionable. There are clothes on the runway inspired by novels and authors. Fashion houses are sponsoring book podcasts, and a recent TikTok interiors trend is called bookshelf wealth. My colleague Simon Chilvers recently wrote an article about fashion’s love affair with literature, and he’s here with me in the London studio to talk about it. Hi, Simon.

Simon Chilvers
Hi.

Lulu Smyth
So to start off, can you just sort of tell me about how this phenomenon came about or like how you kind of first noticed the trend?

Simon Chilvers
I think one of my initial excitements around this topic was an ongoing obsession with Marc Jacobs’ Instagram, where he has these what he calls reading hours, and he will post a picture of himself reading a novel or some kind of quite cultural book. And I think originally why I found them so amazing was because the books themselves look like really old library books. They’re like really big hardbacks. I just thought they were kind of like quite fascinating. And he also has long-standingly had a bookstore, which is called Bookmarc.  

Lulu Smyth
Is that in London?

Simon Chilvers
It’s in New York, and it was obviously quite a fun name: Bookmarc, Marc Jacobs.

Lulu Smyth
Yeah. Oh, yeah. (Laughter) So you talk in your article about a few bookshops that kind of marry fashion and literature, including Karl Lagerfeld’s former photo studio, which is now a kind of cultural hub in Paris. But if we’re talking about it is a trend that’s reflected in the clothing itself. How do you pinpoint it?

Simon Chilvers
I think it’s probably a combination of seeing book-related things on the runways. So that would be Valentino most recently did these men’s clothes with a text from A Little Life on them.

Lulu Smyth
Unbelievable. It’s . . . (Laughter) the pictures in your article, I was just like . . . (Laughter)

Simon Chilvers
I mean, it’s quite interesting. Like the idea of a kind of quite dramatic novel suddenly being put on a pair of jeans.

Lulu Smyth
I was gonna say. Yeah, I think we’ll get to the Valentino example, because it seems to sum up something like quite specific that’s going on. But what other examples are there?

Simon Chilvers
Anna Sui, her show last month in New York for Autumn/Winter 2024, was inspired by Miss Marple and Virginia Woolf and was staged at this incredible book room in New York at The Strand Book Store, which is this really beautiful space, loads of bookshelves. And then before that, this season before Sacchi showing in Paris, had these amazing prints of, like, bookshelves actually on clothes as well.

Lulu Smyth
Oh, cool. I (inaudible) cool.

Simon Chilvers
Yeah, actually cool. Like quite beautiful. Like quite muted colours. Like very sort of vintage-looking books. So I think there’s been a few examples quite recently on runways where literature has kind of infiltrated fashion and even actually the most recent Tom Brown show in New York last month was inspired by The Raven poem by Edgar Allan Poe. So there is definitely a kind of bubbling of literary reference points on the catwalk, for sure.

Lulu Smyth
Yeah.

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We’ll talk about a bit about like why we think that’s happening. But first, I kind of want to take a moment for the Valentino collection and particularly the jeans. So for listeners, there was this pair of jeans, which have a block of white text and capitals on the thigh, which is a quote from A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which is an 800-page book and notoriously quite depressing. Why do you think they went with that book? Do you know the kind of back-story?

Simon Chilvers
I actually don’t know the back-story, but I just think it’s such a kind of iconic study of masculinity. And I think that that’s kind of what a lot of fashion designers do is like they unpick stories as part of their collections. And I think there was something about that particular book. I mean, it’s obviously not a new book that’s continued to resonate, and when it was a play, everyone was talking about it. And I think possibly the idea of putting those kinds of words on to clothes is some kind of statement about masculinity and kind of . . . Yeah, like discovering masculinity to unpicking it in a way that perhaps literature can do in a more kind of, like, deep-dive way than perhaps it seems that fashion can.

Lulu Smyth
We should also mention bookshelf wealth, which is this new kind of interiors trend. Can you sort of give a sense of what that is?

Simon Chilvers
I mean, I think the funny thing about bookshelf wealth is that it sort of still feels to me like it’s slightly dependent on how you interpret the word wealth.

Lulu Smyth
Right.

Simon Chilvers
On the one hand, on TikTok, there seems to be this kind of like very grand version of bookshelf wealth, which is where it’s all about cosy seating and log fires, and these very beautiful bookshelves, full of books that have always been very curated. And then, on the other hand, it also is meant to be sort of dishevelled and kind of like the anti-version of that, like books that you might have actually read as opposed to books. They look sexy.

Lulu Smyth
Yeah. I think I’m more in the dishevelled camp when I was like . . . now it’s like music to my ears. (Laughter). But it’s a kind of it fits into this idea because it’s sort of cynically, it’s signalling a kind of literary-ness without necessarily having read the book. So it’s using books as like objects of a decorative value rather than for their text.

Simon Chilvers
I mean, I have to say, when I first heard about this particular trend, I was a little bit eye-rolling. So I was like, isn’t this just kind of what lots of people did in the pandemic when they did all that work calls on Zoom, and that actually realised that one of the nicest backdrops perhaps in their house was their bookshelf, because it was just visually a bit more interesting than the white wall or, you know, the kitchen table or whatever. So I found it kind of interesting that this had become like more than it already was. Like I was a bit like: is this not already a thing?

Lulu Smyth
Yeah, it’s seems kind of surprising that that’s come up now.

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So let’s kind of talk about our theories as to why this is happening. What’s your best guess about what’s going on and why books are so hot right now, or why books are in again as a fashion item?

Simon Chilvers
I mean, I think there’s like lots of reasons for this happening at this moment. One of them, I think, is the . . . Ms Sarah Andelman who ran the very influential store, Colette, which was this incredibly influential Parisian boutique which ran between 1997 and 2017. I was talking to her about it, and she was saying that one of the things that’s so great about something like Marc Jacobs on Instagram is that it really sort of — despite the fact that we live in this kind of culture where there’s more fashion shows, more collections, more this, more, more, more, all the time — that by taking a book and just sitting down with yourself, it’s like just pausing and respecting the moment. And I guess, in a way, it’s like the anti-scroll, you know.

Lulu Smyth
Yeah. It does feel like there’s a kind of parallel with vinyls in some way where people are sort of seeking older technology. I mean, to refer to books as like older technology seems absurd, (Laughter) but that’s kind of, I guess, kind of what it is as a way to sort of seek refuge from the chaos of the internet. I wonder, I mean, even in the kind of design trend, it’s like people have been putting vinyls on their wall for decades, and that’s kind of come back around and come back around.

Simon Chilvers
I think it’s also, you know, we’ve got so used to like binge-watching Netflix series and all of these things. And you know, we’re looking at imagery a lot. So I think this idea of like a break from the visuals is also a big part of the reason why I think a lot of people in fashion like books is because, you know, it’s just a break from this kind of bombardment of stuff to look at, and more so than ever now.

Lulu Smyth
I wonder if there’s, like what the relationship is with quiet luxury or if there is a relationship between . . . especially something like anarchy banging on about the Valentino collection. (Laughter) The idea with quiet luxury is that the — or at least my interpretation of it — is that there are sort of these stealth symbols where it looks like a regular garment. But then there’s one thing on it where, like, if, you know, you know, and the Valentino collection, I mean, it isn’t stealthy, but the references are. I mean, yeah, do you think that there’s anything sort of there in terms of apparel or a comment?

Simon Chilvers
I mean, it’s interesting you should say that because I think a lot of people writing about bookshelf wealth have kind of put it on the same line as quiet luxury. I’m not sure I necessarily connect the two things together. I definitely think that in a way, there is definitely something about fashion and fashion collections and creating those collections that’s a lot more thought and work and deep diving into references, which usually start with books and perhaps the public maybe don’t always see. And I think that it’s very easy to sort of eye roll a bit, like the glamour of fashion and the models and all of these stuff that the circus that goes around it. But you know, most fashion designers that are actually good and who have had long careers will often have a whole bunch of references that they have used and distilled down into their collections. And you know, I think it’s one of those great questions to ask when you talk to fashion designers, like what books have you been reading? Quite often illuminating in the same way that I think music is as well. And I guess the other thing that’s interesting about the current literary fashion hookup is that it’s kind of like a similar trend to the way in which so many fashion designers have collaborated with artists in the last 20 or so years. I think there’s something about this kind of cross, multidisciplinary cultural mash-up stuff. Social media has kind of allowed us to play with a bit more. I think, you know, we’re seeing it across all of the different visual mediums, like whether it’s dance or art or painting, sculpture or whatever. There’s a lot more like of these like partnerships and this blurring of like, what is visual art or what does it mean?

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Lulu Smyth
It’s funny, as I’m talking to you, I’m kind of changing my mind because I went into this with a very cynical take, which is that to me, it seems a bit like an attempt in some ways to establish a new sort of elite sphere in a fractured culture or whatever, and slapping a literary quote on to £1,000- jacket for intellectual clout. So it seems to me to hark back to these old status symbols where only rich people went to university who read a lot. And we’ve spent the last, you know, 70 years trying to democratise literature and get sort of rid of that stigma. So on the one hand, it can kind of be read as an attempt by high fashion to sort of reclaim literature. But whoever can afford, you know, a high-fashion collection.

Simon Chilvers
I mean, I sort of think also, the thing about it is that you can be quite cynical about it if you want to be. I mean, you know, I think when you tell people that Chanel is sponsoring podcasts — not sponsoring them —they’re actually creating their own. They have this huge amount of content on their website, which is based around literature. But actually when you sort of dive into some of it is kind of really quite thought-provoking and deep, and it’s not as like fluffy as I think you might think if you hadn’t listened to it like I was listening to the one which they recorded in Manchester last year when Chanel did this big series of events in Manchester. And you know, it’s quite intense stuff like it’s talking about female rights and literature in a way that’s very intellectual. It’s not trying to shoehorn in “Oh, and by the way, buy Chanel handbags”. You know, it doesn’t feel disingenuous in that way. And in . . . it is quite democratic. I mean, that was another one of the things that Sarah said to me when we were chatting was that, you know, most people can buy a novel, and most people can be part of a book club. So there is a kind of democracy around reading in the same way that everybody gets dressed in the morning, you know, everyone puts clothes on. And yes, we don’t all put Chanel clothes on. But I think that . . . 

Lulu Smyth
One day. (Laughter)

Simon Chilvers
Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I don’t know.

Lulu Smyth
Do you think, I mean, on that note, do you think that we’ll see this book stuff in mass fashion as well if like, you know, do you think there’ll be a kind of trickle down?

Simon Chilvers
I hope not. (Laughter) I mean, I don’t really think I’d like to see a printed bookshelf on a high street outfit particularly, which makes me sound quite snobby. (Laughter) I mean, I don’t know, like, I think some of the things that are interesting about this particular moment is that the designers are taking things that they’re finding very inspiring and putting into their work. And I guess maybe people are more high street and are doing a similar thing, and it’s just that we haven’t really talked about that in fashion so much. I don’t know.

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Lulu Smyth
I think it also goes the other way as well with like the publishing industry, there’s always been a sort of push to promote books as aspirational, chic, desirable objects. And I think that’s becoming more pronounced like a lot of money has just gone into, or more money is going into making book covers. And like as a journalist, even if you receive a proof, you’ll get like a hardback cover, often with like, little themed treats with it. So it’s really leaning into that idea of like books as objects as well, and having an experience with an object.

Simon Chilvers
When we were talking before about social media and how there is like this huge amount of stuff that we’re sort of taking on board, I guess, like in a way, publishing is the same. It realises that it has to jostle for so much attention, and everything, as you say, has become kind of much more visual and I guess persuasive because there’s so much to look at, there’s so much choice. I guess all of those sort of details are even more present than they perhaps were before, I don’t know.

Lulu Smyth
Yeah, I guess it’s just the way it goes. Simon, thanks so much for coming on the show. This was so interesting and insightful.

Simon Chilvers
Thank you for having me.

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Lulu Smyth
That’s the show. Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I’ve linked to Simon’s articles in the show notes, including his profile of Brandon Taylor, as well as Edwin Heathcote’s piece on bookshelf wealth. Simon also told me some authors that he’d love to see featured more in fashion are Deborah Levy and Annie Ernaux. So I’ve put some links to their work too. All links will get you past the paywall on FT.com. Other things in the show notes are discounts for a subscription to the Financial Times, and ways to stay in touch with us on email and Instagram. As Lilah says, we love hearing from you.

I’m Lulu Smyth and here’s my talented team. Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco, with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks this week to Persis Love. Have a lovely week and Lilah will be back on Friday.