Fashion books usually appeal to the eye with zippy photographs, playful illustrations, arresting typefaces. But the best of them will offer something for the head and heart — a surprising point of view, thoughtful essays, a distinctive style — that makes the experience memorable. Consider these three new books: "John Galliano Unseen" (Yale University Press, ) by Robert Fairer; "Food in Vogue" (Abrams, ), edited by Taylor Antrim; and "Items: IsFashion Modern?" (The Museum of Modern Art, ) by Paola Antonelli and Michelle Millar Fisher.
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Visuals — big, bold, almost impossibly saturated with color and often witty as hell — bring a delicious bite to "Food in Vogue," a look at the fashion magazine's approach to food over the decades. It's an attitude best described as totemic rather than home ec/useful — and that's the fun of it. I mean, who knew frozen vegetables could look so good? Well, Irving Penn did — and the proof is the very first photo, his, in the book.
Whether it's "Chicken in Heels" from Helmut Newton in 2003 or a Eric Boman's plush toy bunny climbing into a stewpot for 2014's "Hop to It," these images speak to something more elegant, exotic, urgently elemental than the usual what's-for-dinner ho-hum. The photos are arranged in an order clearly meant to surprise and, perhaps, shock. The emotional zing is compounded by the oversized (10-by-13.4-inch) format that allows the images to practically leap from the page.
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