The Haute Guide: Essential Readings and Viewings for Fashion Literacy
Pictured in Photo: Naomi Campbell
If you want to stop looking at fashion from the surface and start speaking it as a language, you need to treat it like homework. That means studying the editors, designers, and fashion critics who shaped the industry. Below is a curated menu of magazines, articles, films, documentaries, books, and digital media, all handpicked and approved by The Haute Diary.
Magazines and Articles
Vogue, September 2007 issue, documented in The September Issue, as a case study in editorial power.
Business of Fashion’s State of Fashion Report, published annually, for an unvarnished look at the global industry.
i-D’s “The Youth Issue”, to understand how subculture translates into mainstream influence.
D.V by Diana Vreeland, to see how editorial vision rewrote visual storytelling. It also helps to have watched her documentary as well.
Anything Kathy Horyn.
Books
Fashion Journalism: History, Theory and Practice by Sanda Miller and Peter McNeil, for a structured understanding of the field.
The Beautiful Fall by Alicia Drake, chronicling the rivalry between Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent.
Gods and Kings by Dana Thomas, for an intimate look at Alexander McQueen and John Galliano.
Documentaries and Films
Vogue in the 90’s, a documentary series that breaks down the beginning of Vogue as we know it and the major turning points in fashion during the 90’s. The decade of the 90’s was an exciting era, it revolutionized fashion, and it set the tone for what we see in contemporary fashion today. Seriously, if you watch anything, watch this first.
The September Issue (2009), on Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington shaping fashion’s largest fashion publication.
McQueen (2018), a raw portrait of genius and pain.
Bill Cunningham New York (2010), showing fashion’s democratic eye on the street.
Dior and I (2014), capturing Raf Simons’ first couture collection for Dior.
Digital Media
You can never go wrong with Vogue Magazine.
Numéro Magazine, very digestible content, and you can find articles that span across culture, fashion, art, beauty, and many more. (I personally recommend for beginners who don’t want to read Vogue, but you should still read Vogue. They’re the OG.)
Dazed Digital, where art, culture, and style collide in provocative dialogue.
Archival runway collections on Vogue Runway, to train your eye season by season.
Treat this guide as your homework. If you want to be part of the conversation, you must read, watch, and absorb. Only then does fashion stop being surface and start becoming a language you can truly speak.