Fashion-Scholars and -Lovers Came Out to Celebrate Olivier Saillard’s New Book

Olivier Saillard’s 6,000-plus Instagram followers know what a word person he is. At the Association Azzedine Alaïa on Thursday night, the multihyphenate curator grabbed a pen and a chair as friends like Dominique Issermann, Elie Top, Charlotte Rampling, Carla Sozzani, and Nathalie Rykiel and Lola Rykiel lined up for inscriptions, sometimes on multiple copies, on his latest and longest tome, Le Bouquin de la Mode, or “the book of fashion.”

A “novelistic anthology,” the book groups history, fashion anecdotes, aphorisms, and observations spanning three millennia, from Charlemagne to Demna Gvasalia’s Balenciaga. Approximately 1,240 pages spill over with tidbits about fashion’s usual suspects (Madame Grès, Paul Poiret, Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Alaïa), snippets by literary icons—Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, and Colette, for example—and surprising discoveries, like a rare set of illustrated poems by the writer and Chanel biographer Louise de Vilmorin, which Saillard unearthed at Lanvin.

“Often fashion books are large and illustrated; they’re made to be read on a table. I wanted this one to be something you can read in bed,” he quipped. For now, Bouquin is available in French only, but a translation may be in the works: “It’s all about letting French culture shine on,” Saillard said.