On an English summer’s day, in a walled garden on the grounds of a very old house, not too far from an organic mushroom risotto stall on one side and a flower show on the other, Louise Wilson, professor of the respected MA Fashion course at Central
"I’ve always loved books. I’ve always spent money on books. I've always enjoyed handling books – the size, the format. I feel very strongly about original ephemera. The problem today is that the rarity has gone. In the past, you’d have one magazine, it would arrive monthly and that was your magazine. You’d devour it; you’d absorb all the knowledge in it; you’d read it over and over again. Now there is tons of information available online. 90% of students rarely look at magazines in their intended format because they’re looking at them on a computer screen. They don’t understand the layout so when they come to putting their own portfolios together they have no spatial awareness. They’re not handling the paper, they’re not understanding the crudity of type and they don’t devour the magazine because it has no boundary to them."
On an English summer’s day, in a walled garden on the grounds of a very old house, not too far from an organic mushroom risotto stall on one side and a flower show on the other, Louise Wilson, professor of the respected MA Fashion course at Central St. Martin’s began, in her own words, to “rant”. Ebullient and committed to a cause, she was well-received by the audience of Port Eliotfestival goers. Her chosen topic was the 10 fashion books which have influenced her life. The most important thing about these books, for Wilson, is that they are all books – physical objects; printed on paper; art directed and designed to exist as complete and discrete material entities. Alarmingly, she revealed, most of the students who she has taught in recent years haven’t experienced them in this way. Their visual stimulus is solely internet-based. What was once created for print is ripped off, pixelated and discoloured instead of being thoughtfully translated into the language of online.
Louise Wilson's 10 favourite fashion books
Cowboy Kate - Sam Haskins, 1964
Mixed Moments - David Bailey, 1976
Wallflower - Deborah Turbeville, 1978
Sleepless Nights - Helmut Newton, 1978
The Women We Wanted To Look Like - Brigid Keenan, 1978
Jungle Fever - Jean Paul Goude, 1981
Charlotte Rampling: With Compliments - Intro by Dirk Bogarde, 1987
Kate: The Kate Moss Book by Kate Moss, 1995
Farm - Jackie Nickerson, 2002
Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979-1984 - Martha Cooper, 2004
Text by Agata Belcen
Agata Belcen is the fashion editor of AnOther Magazine and AnOther Man.