The versatility of books
Reading is fashionable
Reading is fashionable. Now to turn that statement into a 700-word thought-piece on why, namely, based on how or if our relationships to reading have changed because of media perceptions and celebrity endorsements.
I’ve been chewing over this for a while. Back in June, Farrah Storr wrote that writers had become ‘the fashion world’s secret weapon’. Zadie Smith, multiple award-winning writer and essayist, had just starred in Bottega Veneta’s ‘Craft is our Language’ campaign to celebrate fifty years of the signature Intrecciato handbag. Along with other famous faces from creative industries, Smith was selected for her ‘sublime gift for crafting stories’, as per the “crafty” theme. Some felt the campaign was an authentic celebrity casting.
Farrah Storr found the decision to feature Smith ‘dazzling and shocking’. She describes Smith synonymously with luxury - slow, considered, and deeply intellectual. Storr ponders on who we turn to when the cultural commentary has shifted towards retreating from the constant need to be ‘on’. Where fashion, particularly the marketing of high fashion, becomes aspirational, the desire to live a more considered life can steer us toward stories and fictitious worlds that represent that.
Smith’s campaign feature is by no means one-of-a-kind, but it seems to have ramped up. Marc Jacobs founded Bookmarc in 2010, and back in 2015, Joan Didion fronted Celine’s spring/summer campaign, owing to her effortless nonchalance and minimally chic style. By last year, books and literature began to infiltrate fashion trend cycles more dominantly. In 2024, Saint Laurent also opened a bookstore in Paris, Miu Miu launched a ‘summer reads’ campaign, and Valentino sponsored the 2024 Booker Prize. Prada even commissioned Ottessa Moshfegh to create a limited-edition book of short stories as part of their spring/summer 2025 campaign. And in the summer of this year, Dior unveiled new ‘book’ tote bag designs.
So, why the reading and books/fashion crossover? I think there’s a good argument that BookTok and Bookstagram, the online communities largely comprising of young women with a passion for reading and books, had some swing. Don’t roll your eyes or dismiss them so easily - they’ve had the power to influence the Best Seller lists for years. Brands are aligning themselves with subcommunities that mirror their own ‘ethos’ and the settings in which they would most like their products to be shown. Who better than the ‘literary ‘it’ girl’?
Vogue Business also highlighted that by aligning with books, brands can tap into consumers’ heightened interest in the act of reading as a function of a “third-space retail concept”, where physical stores can transform into cultural hubs that consumers want to spend time in. Something I hadn’t considered before, but it is a very credible theory as brands look to create better community and loyalty among customers.
While I agree with some of the subliminal messaging and aspirational marketing posed by casting writers in luxury designer brand campaigns, I think there’s equally a strong case for the more basic reasoning that books are a status symbol and reading is cool again. We all became obsessed with the books characters were filmed reading (or clutching) on The White Lotus, Reese Witherspoon’s book club helped her to rake in millions of dollars, and we’re desperate to know what books tickle the fancy of supermodels.
I mean, it always has been in my opinion that reading is fashionable in its own right. But, as I remind you often, the Victorian era siloed reading (fiction and novels) as a frivolous activity for men. Little has changed since, as women readers still outnumber men, particularly regarding fiction and also read more frequently. I digress.
After all, celebrities always like to get involved, and brands hope they make the right choices when it comes to picking the perfect famous person to help market their products. Every time our eyes are open, we’re being sold something. Every image, photo, reel, TV show and film is thickly coated in layers of product placement. Sometimes it’s the weird and entirely perplexing use of endorsements as a sales tool that works best to get people talking, like the Benson Boone Crumbl cookie. Or the downright outrageous, which stick in our minds, like the limited-edition ‘Stormzy meal’ at McDonald’s amid calls to boycott the fast-food chain after Israeli McDonald’s franchises were donating meals to the IDF. Stormzy received enormous online backlash for the collaboration, and McDonald’s is still facing sales slumps in the UK and the US.
There are, after all, worse endorsements than books and authors. Anyone remember JLS promoting safe sex among teens and young adults by releasing Durex condoms with their faces on the packet? Now that’s something fit for a true Halloween Haunting.
