Experts Pick: Best Book Gifts for Holiday Season
Books you never knew you needed.
Welcome to the Unfolding NEW PATTERNS. In my latest podcast, Fashion Knowledge, I discuss generative art with Maya Man. Find out more on Instagram.
Just in time for the holiday season, my go-to fashion experts recommend their favorite reads on fashion, digital cultures, and beyond. This curated list gathers books that have profoundly changed and shaped their perspectives and practices. From uncovering sensational secrets in fashion to exploring tech and digital culture classics, these reads are not only deep and nurturing but also thought-provoking. Whether you're seeking inspiration, knowledge, or just a good read, this collection is a must for anyone in fashion, technology, and culture. If you would like to share your favorite book, you can add it in the comments below.
Costas Kazantzis recommends The Digital Closet by Alexander Monea
Book: “The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight” by Alexander Monea, 2023, The MIT Press
POV: “This book offers a comprehensive analysis of how the war on porn, along with content moderation policies developed by a homogenous, heteronormative demographic within giant tech companies, has led to the censorship of non-pornographic content, including material on sex education, visual arts, and LGBTQ+ activism. It also explores the impact that this might have on creative expression within web platforms, as well as the discovery and development of identity in the online realm.
Monea’s “The Digital Closet” serves as a significant influence and inspiration, particularly in shaping my creative practice, which focuses on utilizing game engine technology to explore interactive web platforms that move beyond the exclusion associated with mainstream online channels.”
Who is it ideal for?: “Anyone interested in exploring how we can make the internet a safer space, visual artists, the LGBTQIA+ community, digital fashion creatives.”
Costas Kazantzis is a Creative Technologist at the Fashion Innovation Agency and a lecturer at the London College of Fashion. He focuses on identifying novel ways through which game engine technology, 3D design, and XR can reshape the way fashion and art content is disseminated.
Tabitha Swanson recommends Anti-Tech Revolution by Theodore John Kaczynski
Book: “Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How” by Theodore John Kaczynski, 2020, Fitch & Madison Publishers
POV: “As a creative technologist deeply interested in sociological trends within human history, this book is an interesting combination of an analysis of the predictability and unpredictability of human nature as well as technology. Kaczynski argues why “rational control over the development of society is forever impossible” and whether one agrees with everything contained within this book or not, it provides some interesting food for thought. I’m about halfway through, but I’d recommend giving it a try.”
Who is it ideal for?: “For anyone working in tech or tech-adjacent disciplines (including digital fashion) and those interested in power dynamics, sustainability initiatives, and human social dynamics as a whole.”
Tabitha Swanson is a Berlin-based multi-disciplinary designer, creative technologist, and artist. Her practice includes 3D, animation, augmented reality, digital fashion, graphic design, and UX/UI.
Lydia Pang recommends Your Love Is Not Good by Johanna Hedva
Book: “Your Love Is Not Good” by Johanna Hedva, 2023, And Other Stories
POV: “My favorite kind of book, deeply uncomfortable to read. Dark and haunting, satire laced with a tender core. Asian queer identity struggles, art world horrors, desire, and disgust, every bite of this book is juicy. I was inspired by the chapter titles tethering art movement definitions to junctures in the narrative, a super simple but smart construct. I devoured the whole book and one night had a nightmare my dog got run over so, job done.”
Who is it ideal for?: “Art lovers and haters.”
Lydia Pang is a Frankenstein, misfit creative with a decade of experience in mission driven marketing. She is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of MORNING, a digital strategy and conscious storytelling studio.
Hanan Besovic recommends The Fashion Conspiracy by Nicholas Coleridge
Book: “The Fashion Conspiracy: A Remarkable Journey Through the Empires of Fashion” by Nicholas Coleridge, 1988, HarperCollins
POV: “This is a must-read fashion book that goes in-depth on particular designers and the way that fashion operated in the 80s and 90s. Talks about the importance of every fashion capital and has very interesting stories about designers and those are just a few chapters.”
Who is it ideal for?: “The target group would be the fashion crowd. While there is a lot of knowledge spread in this book, you find a lot of personal stories of fashion designers that affected their businesses and work.”
Hanan Besovic is a content creator and fashion critic who runs the popular Instagram account @ideservecouture.
Paula Keilholz recommends UNLICENSED by Ben Schwarz
Book: “UNLICENSED - Bootlegging As a Creative Practice” by Ben Schwarz, 2023, Valiz
POV: “The collection of interviews with 21 creative practitioners discusses the fine line between subversion and a mere aesthetic that functions as a capitalist engine. Bootlegging as a thriving cultural force, as a technique for questioning systems, as part of the art world as well as the corporate sphere is promised to become tangible through visuals and versatile interviews. As an artivist and designer dealing with subversive practices, I have a practical interest in the perspectives of other creative practitioners on topics such as theft, homage, or appropriation, and at the same time, I highly enjoy looking at sociological trends and pop culture phenomena with an outside analytical eye. I hope that this book satisfies both interests.”
Who is it ideal for?: “Cultural workers and thinkers interested in subversive techniques and cross-disciplinary artistic processes.”
Paula Keilholz is a transformation and fashion designer who works at the intersection of design research, activism, and design education. She is a co-founder of the art collective Threads and Tits.
Erica de Greef recommends The Textile Reader by Jessica Hemmings
Book: “The Textile Reader (2nd Edition)” by Jessica Hemmings, 2023, Bloomsbury
POV: “In an age of material and cultural disconnection, this compilation offers a nuanced, brilliant, curious, and surprisingly expansive journey through the lens of cloth, its making, its manipulations, its meanings, and more. Presented in across 45 short contributions, each with a framing introduction and rich set of supporting references, The Textile Reader offers a rich array of moments taking you from fiction to digital futures, from weaving to weeping, from resistance to rituals, from artisanal skill to architecture. I remember my delight in reading the first edition in 2012; equally this edition doesn’t disappoint.”
Who is it ideal for?: “Readers both involved in and outside of fashion.”
Erica de Greef is an independent fashion curator, decolonial fashion activist, writer, maker, and academic. She is co-founder of the African Fashion Research Institute, a curator at Large in Fashion at Zeitz Museum, and a steering committee member of the Research Collective for Decolonising Fashion.
Karinna Grant recommends On Everyday Life by Vestoj
Book: “On Everyday Life” by Vestoj, 2023, Vestoj
POV: “I would like to receive it as each issue I always refer back to and take time to read. This one is about routines, rituals and repetitions and the practice and poetics of the everyday. So I think there will be a lot to relate to and be inspired by. The curation and breadth of authors and perspectives is what makes me buy each issue each year.”
Who is it ideal for?: “Fashion and Design and Sociology academics, thinking people, curious people.”
Karinna Grant is a digital clothing entrepreneur, nowist, educator, and founder of the social enterprise HOT:SECOND, as well as the co-founder of The Dematerialised, an experiential blockchain-based virtual goods marketplace.
Beata Wilczek recommends Understanding Fashion Scandal by Annamari Vänskä and Olga Gurova
Book: “Understanding Fashion Scandal. Social Media, Identity, and Globalization” by Annamari Vänskä and Olga Gurova, 2023, Bloomsbury
POV: “I am proposing Understanding Fashion Scandals as a book I'd love to receive as a gift this year. The concept captivated me when I learned more about it at a conference in Rimini earlier this year. It made me reflect deeply on the notion that fashion is in dire need of closure and introspection. This book is a unique blend of recent fashion dramas, critical theory, and cultural sustainability, a rare combination that is seldom explored together. It examines incidents where fashion brands were guilty of cultural appropriation, racism, misogyny, and even flirted with fascism. The book frames a fashion scandal as an “unaddressed colonial wound”, offering a fresh perspective on the subject. I believe this book will not only be a thought-provoking read but also an invaluable resource for those seeking clarity and direction in the complex world of fashion references, potentially leading to those transformative 'aha' moments. I hope that it will encourage readers to think critically and prevent the repetition of harmful patterns in the future.”
Who is it ideal for?: “For all fashion workers, including Demna Gvasalia and Stefano Gabbana, as well as fashion students and Diet Prada followers, this is an opportunity to get clarity and satisfy the hunger for meaning and context.”
Beata Wilczek is a researcher, educator, and strategist in tech and fashion. She is a Founder and Director at Unfolding Strategies, a Berlin-based consultancy and education lab, a host of the Fashion Knowledge podcast, and a PhD candidate in Fashion Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Aalto Helsinki.
What a great post, thank you!