With more than 175 color high-fashion photographs, this stunning, comprehensive, and authoritative handbook on modern French couture, covering the finest Parisian houses of couture-including Chanel, Dior, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Lanvin, and more-and the creative directors who are redefining their legacies for the twenty-first century. While trends emerge from New York, London, and Tokyo, the fashion capital of the world remains the City of Light. From Coco Chanel to Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior to Raf Simons, Hubert de Givenchy to Riccardo Tisci, the evolutionary arc of French fashion and its most revered houses grows richer with each season and with a continuous infusion of imaginative new talent. The New French Couture identifies the fashion leaders whose longstanding ateliers have endured, and the creative pioneers who continue to reinvent and reinterpret their signature iconography, including Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, Raf Simons at Christian Dior, Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, Alber Elbaz at Lanvin, Alexander Wang at Balenciaga, and Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent.