Time travel

Designer Payal Singhal is known for her prints and bohemian silhouettes, but it is the lives of iconic designers in Paris from the ‘70s that caught her attention in The Beautiful Fall by Alicia Drake. “It is an engaging read about that time, and is centred on Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent,” she says. Her second pick, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost It’s Luster by Dana Thomas is a look at the corporatisation of small family-run luxury businesses into luxury goods holding companies. It looks into the processes used by these companies to make luxury available for sale to the masses. Like most other designers on our list, Singhal follows @BOF @thevofashion on Instagram for news on fashion. One documentary she recommends is Franca: Chaos and Creation, a film about the life of Franca Sozzani, former editor of Vogue Italia; it’s extra special because her son, photographer and filmmaker Francesco Carrozzini, made it. Sadly, Sozzani passed away in 2016 before seeing the final cut. Another pick is Iris, a documentary on the life of nonagenarian fashion icon Iris Apfel.