FASHION & SURREALISM
AUTHOR: FRANÇOIS BAUDOT
PUBLICATION DATE: DECEMBER/ JANUARY 2002
U.S. LIST PRICE: $18.95
HARDCOVER
61/4 x 81/2
80 PAGES; 60 FULL-COLOR IMAGES
Fashion and the Surrealist movement had numerous affinities from the latter’s outset. “Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all,” André Breton declared in the thirties, a maxim that could serve as motto for the world of haute couture. And fashion, the stuff of its creators’ dreams, often is surreal, in the true sense of the word: a shoe turned into a woman’s hat, a glove with claw-like gold fingernails, a lobster dress… The Surrealists unpicked bourgeois fashion at the seams and gave it a taste for scandal. Today, the genius of Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and René Magritte continues to influence great couturiers such as Yves Saint-Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier, John Galliano and Serge Lutens.

A special correspondent and editorial advisor for French Elle magazine, François Baudot writes about fashion and is a keen observer of our time. Assouline has published his The Allure of Men and The Allure of Women (2001), and he has written a number of titles for the “Mémoire de la Mode” series including Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Poiret, Alaïa, Thierry Mugler and Yohji Yamamoto.