Welcome to our third reading room. As we write this, yet another fashion month is upon us and we prepare to see our favorite style icons descend on New York, London, Milan, and of course, our home, Paris! So we therefore dedicate this reading room to: FASHION.

Fashion is such an integral part of everyone's life, whether you believe so or not. We all get dressed every day, and we all shop for fashion from time to time. Whether your choices are driven by sociological values or by an urge for self expression is another matter. When we hear the word fashion we tend to think of the later, self-expression, which often leads us looking towards the runways.

Like art, fashion has always been a reflection of the current sociological structure, mixed with the values of the designer. In 1937 during the peak of the Surrealism movement, avant-garde designer Elsa Schiaparelli presented her famous Lobster Dress featuring a print from surrealist artist Salvador Dali. This design kicked off a partnership that would go on to create other surrealist designs such as the Shoe Hat and the Skeleton Dress, which were considered outrageous at the time, but were a perfect mirror of this dystopian period.

Another example is the late British designer Alexander McQueen, whose grotesque and dystopian view on fashion provoked and hypnotized the design world throughout the 90s and 00s. Let’s not forget Yves Saint Laurent’s Autumn-Winter 1966 collection, where he shocked the world by creating a tuxedo for women, a moment now known as “Le Smoking”, which has become a defining moment in the history of fashion.