SAMPLE presents 100 outstanding fashion designers selected by 10 of the field’s leading professionals, including editors, stylists, designers, curators and writers. Truly global in scope, it has collected the world’s most exceptional international young designers from fashion`s four capitals – London, Paris, Milan and New York – as well as from other less prominent but no less flourishing centres of activity, such as Auckland, Osaka, Stockholm, Mallorca, Hollywood and Dakar.

The 100 fashion designers are arranged in alphabetical order, with each featured on their own two double-page spreads. Combining photographs, sketches, drawings and computer renderings, SAMPLE explains the processes behind seasonal collections, as well as showcasing final pieces from the realms of men’s wear, women’s wear, shoes, hats and accessories. Concise, descriptive texts by curators explain the designers’ work and the characteristics that make their fashion groundbreaking.

SAMPLE is a meticulously crafted book that gives exposure to previously unseen archive material including formative design sketches and candid, backstage photographs. It is a unique collectors’ piece made for the truly style-conscious, as well as an indispensable reference tool for anyone with an interest in fashion.

SAMPLE takes its place in a series of surveys identifying 100 of the most interesting, cutting-edge practitioners of key art forms. Earlier surveys include cream and Fresh Cream, for contemporary art, 10x10 for architecture, BLINK for photography, Spoon for design and Area for graphic design.

“Part museum exhibition, part encyclopedia […] presents […] talent from fashion capitals to far-flung outposts. Rich, visual layouts combine unseen sketches, illustrations, prints and fabric swatches along with ad campaigns and shows. And if that isn’t enough to get this on this season’s ‘must have’ list, then the cover, pleated like a white Chanel skirt, complete with belt and pages cut on sharp slanted sections, make this a fashion accessory in its own right”
(The Guardian)

Phaidon Press
Hardback, 0714844403
338 x 291 mm 13 3/8 x 9 7/8 inches 432 pp c. 1
000 col illus.


Curator Details
Tim Blanks (London) hosts Fashion File, a magazine-style TV show, which takes an enthusiastic but clear-eyed view of the fashion world.

Patricia Carta (São Paulo) is managing director of Carta Editorial, the Brazilian publisher of Vogue, Casa Vogue and Vogue Men.

Ulrich Lehmann (London) is tutor of the post-graduate course in History of Design, run jointly by the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Alexander McQueen (London) is one of the most famous and respected international fashion designers in the world.

Arianne Phillips (Los Angeles) works as a costume designer in Los Angeles and collaborates with Madonna, styling her for film, music videos, the theatre and the concert stage.

Harriet Quick (London) is fashion features editor of British Vogue.

Stephen Todd (Paris) is editorial director for a collection of fashion and culture publications produced by Editions Dit-Voir, France.

Kyoichi Tsuzuki (Tokyo) is a writer editor and photographer. In 2003 the Center National de la Photographie in Paris and London`s Photographers` Gallery exhibited his portraits of obsessive Japanese consumers.

Walter Van Beirendonck (Antwerp) is a Belgian fashion designer and professor in the fashion department at Antwerp`s Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

Brana Wolf (New York) is fashion editor-at-large for Harper`s Bazaar in New York and collaborates as a stylist with Steven Meisel for Italian Vogue.