Get the latest gossip

Five of the best fashion memoirs

From sizzling muckraking and celebrity gossip to why asparagus should be sexy – these books sneak a peak behind the glitz and glamour of the rag trade

Fashion loves to gossip and Tina Brown’s memoir of her dazzling career is packed full of sizzling muckraking, spanning everyone from Clint Eastwood (“hard work: long, taciturn silences”) to Boris Johnson (“an epic shit”). The larger-than-life editor, who died in 2022, documents his journey from growing up black and poor in North Carolina to becoming a firm fashion fixture with stints at Andy Warhol’s Interview and Vogue, until Anna Wintour as he reveals, froze him out leaving him with “huge emotional and psychological scars”. Though he was famously private, it offers a more intimate look at his formative years, from his strict Catholic upbringing (he was beaten when his mother discovered him trying on his sister’s dresses) and his stint in the US army (he decorated his helmet with flowers) to his eventual move to New York City in the 50s where he began his career in journalism.

Get the Android app