This year Dunedin’s iconic iD Fashion Week takes place from March 16 to 26.

Now in its eighteenth year, it is a great opportunity for emerging designers to showcase their talents, and for well-known Kiwi labels to be seen on our local and international models. What people wear and how they dress tells the reader a great deal about particular characters in a novel and helps the reader gain a greater insight regarding culture, society, time and place. This is as true of historical novels as well as more contemporary works.

If you are interested in fashion you may enjoy the following fashion-inspired novels:

Face Value. Kathleen Baird-Murray

Kate Miller, a young fashion reporter from a small town in England is offered a job as a Fashion Editor in New York City. Arriving in the Big Apple wearing op shop clothes and an outdated hair style, Kate is swept into the world of fashion journalism and tasked with putting a positive spin on the subject of plastic surgery in order to keep her job.

Killer Look. Linda Fairstein

Once again New York City provides the backdrop in this thriller which explores the dark side of Manhattan’s fashion scene. DA Alex Cooper is investigating the death of a designer, whose body is found just days before his latest showing. When the man’s daughter claims his death was murder the case becomes a media sensation.

Mademoiselle Chanel. C W Gortner

A fictionalised account of the life of one of the twentieth century’s most iconic fashion designers. Born into poverty, Gabrielle Chanel was sent to an orphanage after her mother died. It was there that her sewing skills were honed, and eventually Gabrielle became Coco Chanel, a woman burning with ambition, and it was in Paris that she found her destiny.

Daughters of Fortune. Tara Hyland

An epic novel about the Melville sisters: heirs to the exclusive fashion dynasty of their father, William Melville. Each of the sisters must find their own path in the shadow of their famous father, going their separate ways until family matters demand their attention.

The Dressmaker. Rosalie Ham

Tilly Dunnage has spent twenty years in Paris perfecting the art of haute couture dressmaking. Visiting her mother in the Australian town from which she was banished as a child, Tilly initially entrances the women of the town with her beautiful clothes. But then an accident occurs. A tale of revenge and fashion.

Bergdorf Blondes. Plum Sykes

The heroine of the book, known only as Moi, is living the high-life in New York City. With a department store heiress as a best friend, Moi is constantly shopping, getting fake tan and attending benefits in the latest designer clothes. But along the way our champagne bubble girl is looking for love.

SEE ALSO:

The Dress. Kate Kerrigan

Confessions of a Shopaholic. Sophie Kinsella

Brown-Eyed Girl. Lisa Kleypas

Spring Collection. Judith Krantz

An Absolute Deception. Lesley Naa Norle Lokko

Scent of Triumph: A Novel of Perfume and Passion. Jan Moran