An authoritative and admiring portrait of a fashion icon.
The opulent world of a celebrated designer.
As Paris bureau chief of Fairchild Publications, where he oversaw Women’s Wear Daily and W, Middleton was an insider to the heady world—and business—of haute couture and a friend of renowned couturier Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019). Born in Hamburg at the beginning of the Third Reich, Lagerfeld grew up in affluence and showed artistic talent early. In 1949, when Christian Dior staged a show in Hamburg, he went with his mother and came away dazzled. In 1952, he arrived in Paris and soon enrolled in classes for fashion illustration; in 1954, he was catapulted to overnight success after winning the prestigious Woolmark Prize for a coat design. Hired first by Pierre Balmain, he later moved to Jean Patou, where he gained a reputation for his ability to show “how the DNA of a great designer could be tweaked, teased, and even tossed aside in order to create work that was completely new and relevant.” He carefully honed his public image: “tight ponytail, dark glasses, severe tailoring, expansive knowledge of history and culture, amusing, if bitchy, comments.” He loved to provoke; he loved being in the spotlight; and, as Middleton amply shows, he loved luxury, inhabiting one sumptuous apartment after another, filling them with art, antiques, and glamorous guests. To celebrate the launch of his first men’s fragrance, he held a buffet dinner for 900. Unlike some of his rivals, he eschewed drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex, and he worked hard and obsessively. By the 1990s, he mounted about 15 collections per year at Chanel, Fendi, and his own house, Lagerfeld, and produced a burgeoning line of fragrances. With few criticisms, Middleton offers rich descriptions of Lagerfeld’s designs, outfits, and extravagant shows as well as the famous, beautiful, and affluent people who surrounded him: Anna Wintour, Paloma Picasso, Ines de la Fressange, Claudia Schiffer, and a host of others.
An authoritative and admiring portrait of a fashion icon.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780062969033
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.
The late heavy metal legend considers his mortality in this posthumous memoir.
“I ain’t ready to go anywhere,” writes Osbourne in the opening pages of his new memoir. “It’s good being alive. I like it. I want to be here with my family.” Given the context—Osbourne died on July 22, 2025, two weeks after the publisher announced the news of this book—it’s undeniably sad. But the rest of the text sees the Black Sabbath singer confronting the health struggles of his last years with dark humor and something approaching grace. The memoir begins in 2018; he wrote an earlier one, I Am Ozzy, in 2010. He tells of a staph infection he suffered that proved to be the start of a long, painful battle with various illnesses—soon after, he contracted a flu, which morphed into pneumonia. A spinal injury caused by a fall followed, causing him to undergo a series of surgeries and leaving him struggling with intense pain. And then there was his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, the treatment of which was complicated by his longtime struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. Osbourne peppers the chronicle of his final years with anecdotes from his past, growing up in Birmingham, England, and playing with—and then being fired from—Black Sabbath, and some of his most well-known antics (yes, he does address biting the heads off of a dove and a bat). He writes candidly and regretfully about the time he viciously attacked his wife, Sharon—the book is in many ways a love letter to her and his children. The memoir showcases Osbourne’s wit and charm; it’s rambling and disorganized, but so was he. It functions as both a farewell and a confession, and fans will likely find much to admire in this account. “Death’s been knocking at my door for the last six years, louder and louder,” he writes. “And at some point, I’m gonna have to let him in.”
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781538775417
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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