Book excerpt: Illustrated throughout with photographs and drawings from nearly two centuries of fashion, this irresistible volume is a history of the ongoing love affair between designers and their muses. Lavishly illustrated and thematically arranged, Fashion Muse looks at the many iterations a muse can take: Greek goddess, fairy-tale princess, wife, lover, supermodel, celebrity, and artist. A prominent art historian with a profound knowledge of the culture of fashion, Debra N. Mancoff delves far and wide to present pairings both familiar and surprising, including the first couturier Charles Frederick Worth and his wife; Elsa Schiaparelli and the Surrealists; Yves Saint Laurent and the painter Mondrian; Oleg Cassini and Jacqueline Kennedy; and Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy. She reveals numerous designers whose muse was their own image, from Coco Chanel to Diane von Furstenberg to the Olsen twins. And she examines the influence of figures from the worlds of art, celebrity, and pop culture. Entertaining, inspiring, and surprising, this enthralling exploration places the muse where he or she belongs: at the highest peaks of the creative process. ILLUSTRATION: 250 illustrations 100 in colour