Fashion For The Coffee Table | Celia Birtwell

Topshops Print Icon Celia Birtwell, by Victoria

We just love bringing a little bit of the fashion world into our home and find there is no better way to do it than with a coffee table book.  Books, like this, are wonderful as they can really spark friend’s interests and have them interacting and discussing a topic they might have thought they knew nothing about.  In fact all my coffee table books are always well thumbed as I cook in the kitchen but nothing receives as much love as the book by Celia Birtwell (and Dominic Lutyens). Perhaps its because Celia is a one of Britain’s best-known, best loved, designers or perhaps it’s because the book is just really, really pretty.

Image: British Vogue

This is the only book of it’s kind, to document the life and career of Celia from her bohemian lifestyle in the 60s and 70s right through to her boom in the 1990s and best selling TopShop ranges more recently. What is really intriguing about the biography is the arts scene in which Celia mixed in and seeing her call Manolo Blahnik, the Beatles, Mick and Bianca Jagger and Paloma Picasso friends. All this is well documented in delightful memoirs, photographs, drawings, paintings and sketches. The style of the book is like a scrapbook which really makes you think you are delving into the private world (and mind) of this remarkable designer.

Stay reading for more of what is on my coffee table.

Love Victoria X