Cutting-edge talent Issey Miyake, who died in 2022 at 84, was one of the first Japanese designers to show in Paris, and this new book is an encyclopedic reference to his innovations from 1960 to 2022. Kitamura, his mentor, draws on their nearly 50-year creative collaboration, showcasing the poetic vision and creative process behind Miyake’s design and textile innovations, beginning with his first commission – for material manufacturer Toyo Rayon in 1962, while he was still a Tokyo graphic design student – through the evolution of his famous pleats and origami-like designs.

David Bowie, Michael Jackson and Madonna all wore it; so did Don Johnson in Miami Vice. The brand was Parachute, an avant-garde 1980s label inspired by the New Wave scene, formed by British clothing designer Nicola Pelly and American architect and urban planner Harry Parnass in 1977 Montreal. Walker’s new book on the line (which shuttered in 1993) grew out of an acclaimed 2021 exhibition mounted by the associate curator of fashion at the city’s McCord Stewart Museum, and explores the subversive global brand’s genesis, influence (on street fashion as well as concept-store retail design) and lasting relevance. (May 7)

Following in the footsteps of the late, great New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham, Queens-raised Cirillo has built a following on Instagram (@watchingnewyork) for his images of stylish city dwellers. The fashion project that earned him the next-generation moniker, “the People’s Paparazzi,” actually began in 2016 as a tribute to Cunningham’s pioneering street-style photography and has grown into this first coffee-table book of collected images.

Frances McLaughlin was the only female photographer on staff in the Condé Nast photo studio when she was hired in 1943, just after Irving Penn; her sister Kathryn McLaughlin freelanced stylish portraits to women’s publications. Together, their work enlivened the pages of Vogue, Charm, Mademoiselle and Glamour. What makes journalist Kino’s cultural reportage on the trail blazers – identical twins nicknamed Franny and Fuffy – so fascinating, however, is that she widens the lens to offer insight into the lives of women and the changing role of fashion photography during the golden age of 1940s and 1950s women’s magazines.

The influential Biba fashion label, established in 1964 by designer Barbara Hulanicki, 87, was among the first modern lifestyle brands and culminated in a grand, near-mythical 1970s shopping emporium. (Before she was Vogue editor-in-chief, a 15-year-old Anna Wintour was a shopgirl there.) Timed to match the major retrospective celebrating all things Biba that opened last month at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum, this lavish book is a nostalgic trip back to Swinging London and as immersive as the seven-storey Art Deco flagship that once housed retail, food, music, celebrities and dancing.

Rare fashion masterworks from four centuries will be presented at “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” the Costume Institute’s New York exhibition and Met Gala theme this spring. But certain private collectors have an even more personal (though equally mind-blowing) devotion to style artifacts than any institution. In each of the book’s 20 lusciously photographed chapters, Carl, a London-based stylist, takes readers into the stories behind significant archives of completists and devoted collectors, from the late Zaha Hadid’s treasured footwear collection and Michèle Lamy’s Comme des Garçons archive to Jennefer Osterhoudt’s Galliano and McQueen trove, obsessively accumulated over decades.

The InStyle magazine founding editor’s colourful survey of how television costume design has influenced fashion over the decades is a must for style mavens – and a jaunt down pop culture memory lane. A chapter on working women, for example, details how neither The Mindy Project nor Kerry Washington’s Scandal would exist without Marlo Thomas and Mary Tyler Moore’s pioneering career-gal shows. Lucille Ball’s relatable middle-class I Love Lucy housewife clothes are another example. Bewitched, Dynasty, A Different World, Mad Men, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Grace & Frankie, Empire and even Schitt’s Creek: All your favourites are here, including a final chapter on the impact of reality TV!

Every summer I renew my call to bring back beach pyjamas. Fashion historians D’Agati and Schiff have answered my rallying cry with a lively history of the loose-fitting pyjama style that moved from the boudoir to the beach in the 1920s (later popularized by Hollywood stars such as Marlene Dietrich and Jean Harlow). The glamorous leisure attire was soon promoted by designers like Jean Patou, Paul Poiret, Elsa Schiaparelli and of course, Coco Chanel, and, by normalizing the phenomenon, they dramatically reshaped women’s clothing –and led to Western women wearing trousers.