SUSANNAH FRANKEL

Founded as a luxury leather goods house in 1913 in Milan, Prada entered the field of fashion when Miuccia Prada took the helm of the family company in 1979. After initially focusing exclusively on accessories, she presented the houses first fashion collection in 1988. She would soon transform Prada into one of the worlds most influential luxury brands with a deeply personal, sophisticated and subtly subversive approach.This definitive publication opens with a concise history of the house, followed by a brief biographical profile of Miuccia Prada, before exploring the collections themselves, organized chronologically. Each collection is introduced by a short text unveiling its influences and highlights, and illustrated with carefully curated catwalk images that showcase hundreds of spectacular clothes, details, accessories, beauty looks and set designs and, of course, the top fashion models who wore them on the runway, from Naomi Campbell and Gisele to Kate Moss and Kaia Gerber. A rich reference section, including an extensive index, concludes the book.

This collection brings together a series of in-depth profiles of leading fashion designers written between 1996 and 2001 by the fashion editor Susannah Frankel. Originally featured in "The Independent", "The Guardian" and "Dazed and Confused", these interviews cover the work of the most influential designers of the 1990s, including successful British designers: Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith and Hussein Chalayan - as well as big international names from Japan, Italy, France and the USA: Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Tom Ford, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce and Gabbana, Donatella Versace, Sonia Rykiel and more. The interviews provide an insight into the designers'' lives, comprehensive biographical detail and in-depth analysis into the way they think and work as well as documenting the cultural climate at the time. The book is illustrated with portraits and shoots by some of the best fashion photographers - both more established and up-and-coming - working today, among them Robert Wyatt, Juergen Teller, Donald Christie, Julie Sleaford, Mark Aleski, Justin Smith and Jane McLeish.

In her first book, Frankel presents a fashion-first look at the world, giving readers at least a decade of new material. This collection of her interviews with fashion designers, previously published in journals such as the Independent and Dazed & Confused, offers a closer, more penetrating look into some of the world''s most intriguing designers. Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, and John-Paul Gaultier are some of the designers showcased, alongside images of their clothes. The reproductions of the work that originally ran with each piece are enticing eye candy, sweetening the illuminating and juicy revelations printed in the accompanying interviews. The interviews, which took place between 1997 and April 2001, seem to preserve each designer''s pre-glory moments in time while presenting other designers'' careers as the standard by which all success is measured. Although thorough in her coverage, Frankel does leave out prominent designers in America and Europe to include lesser-knowns from Britain. Radical Fashion offers a short list of designers who innovate on the avant-garde of design. Since the honor of inclusion is bestowed upon only the most eccentric of the London/Milan/Paris set, the book seems a bit more elitist than Visionaries, excluding progressive designers such as Galliano, Gianni Versace, and Viktor & Rolf. The text offers a more academic glimpse of fashion and its extreme, with articles centered on one main concept. For example, a discussion of haute couture leads to Azzedine Alaia and Gautier, whereas Helmut Lang''s vision is related to an essay about mixing art and fashion. The essays are extremely well researched as the authors, including Frankel, take on more complex concepts of design and also consider how fashion has altered in the face of modernity. The pictures included here are less glamorous and, on the whole, smaller, but they are useful reference points for the text. Both titles include notable quotes from each designer, highlighting their perspective on fashion. Radical Fashion is an excellent source for fashion theory, whereas Visionaries offers closer insight into the designers themselves. Rachel Collins, "Library Journal"