Be-Spoke Revelations from the World's Most Important Fashion Designers

A collection of witty and sometimes wry quotes, inspiring edicts, and philosophies about fashion and style by celebrated fashion designers—from Coco Chanel to Tom Ford—as told to acclaimed fashion journalist Marylou Luther.

In her seventy-year career as a fashion journalist, newspaper columnist, and author, Marylou Luther has interviewed the most iconic figures in the fashion world who open up and spill the proverbial fashion “dirt” to Luther.

In her early days as a journalist, Luther met with the true legends of fashion—she interviewed Christian Dior in 1957 for the Chicago Tribune and visited Coco Chanel at her Rue Cambon atelier; Chanel proclaimed to Luther that “Only those with no memory insist on their originality. Yves Saint Laurent has excellent taste. The more he copies me, the better taste he displays.” Flash forward to present day, and designer Demna Gvasalia told Luther, “Fashion needs to shut up and look at itself—it needs a minute of silence to adjust after the pandemic.”

Featuring Karl Lagerfeld, Virgil Abloh, Marc Jacobs, Azzedine Alaïa, Rei Kawakubo, Miuccia Prada, Thom Browne, and more, the book celebrates the designers with drawings by fashion’s favorite illustrator, Ruben Toledo. His charming and vibrant renderings of these creative individuals, combined with inspiring and humorous text, makes this captivating book a must-have for fashion lovers everywhere.

Marylou Luther is the editor and founder of the International Fashion Syndicate and award-winning “Clotheslines” column and is the fashion editor emeritus of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. Cuban-born artist Ruben Toledo has had his work published in The New Yorker, Vogue, Town & Country, and The New York Times.