The Asylum: True Tales of Madness from a Life in Fashion - Softcover

Doonan, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0399173714 ISBN 13: 9780399173714

Publisher: Blue Rider Press, 2015

Synopsis

After nearly a lifetime spent in the Industry, author and fashion insider Simon Doonan is ready to let you in on a little secret: his peers in this multibillion-dollar industry are just as nutty as the denizens of your local loony bin. In The Asylum, an unabashedly hilarious memoir-in-essays, Doonan, the creative ambassador for Barneys New York, tells the real-life stories of glamorous madness and stylish insanity.

Doonan has seen it all: from dealing with models unable to work for fear of ghosts, to deep-sea fishing with a couturier pal and his jailbird companion, to watching Anna Wintour remain perfectly calm while the ceiling fell—literally—in the middle of Fashion Week. The outlandish family Doonan knew as a child has given way to alarmingly similar lunatic peers in the fashion world: style insiders see patterns and trends in everything; they suffer from outsize personality disorders and delusions of grandeur; and, of course, they have a predilection for theatrical makeup and artfully destroyed clothing. No one is more suited to the asylum than the truly die-hard fashionista—after all, eccentricity and extremism are the foundations of great style.

Hailed as “a must-read for fashionistas and non-fashionistas alike,” (Michael Kors) and “raucous and revelatory” (Booklist), Doonan’s critically acclaimed collection gives us the scoop on the kooky, cutthroat—but always fabulous—fashion world, and proves the author to be one of the sharpest humorists writing today.

About this title

About the Author

Simon Doonan is the creative ambassador for Barneys New York and the author of several books, including Gay Men Don’t Get Fat, Wacky Chicks, and Beautiful People (published in the U.S. as Nasty), which became a BBC TV series. Originally from England, he worked on Savile Row, at Maxfield in Los Angeles, and with Diana Vreeland at The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art before becoming the creative director of Barneys New York, where he designed legendary window displays for more than twenty years. In 2009, he designed the holiday decorations for the Obama’s first White House Christmas. Formerly a columnist for The New York Observer, he is now a contributor to Slate.com, and has appeared on Gossip Girl, Iron Chef America, America’s Next Top Model, and elsewhere. Doonan lives in New York with his husband, Jonathan Adler.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Author's Note

Ah! Fashion.

A nuthouse? A refuge? Or maybe both. Yes, an asylum in both senses of the word. A place where unemployable crazy people are always welcome.

Every seasoned fashion personage has his or her favorite stories of folly, aberration, derangement, kookiness and excess.

These are mine.

In most instances real names are used. I have tweaked the identities of certain individuals to protect their innocence and cherish their fabulosity.

Have I embroidered or embellished? Let me answer that question by quoting Diana Vreeland: “Exaggeration is my only reality.”

—S. D.

About this edition

• Publisher: Blue Rider Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0399173714
• ISBN 13: 9780399173714
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288