Champagne Supernovas

Like the life of a partier, this book from Callahan (Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga) starts out terrifically exciting and fun but then turns repetitive and ultimately depressing. True, Kate Moss is a cool girl with a great look, and Marc Jacobs is a cool guy with a great eye. And while no one would ever accuse Lee Alexander McQueen of being cool—“He was self-conscious about his weight. He hated his face, and for the first few years of his career would only be photographed with his head wrapped in cling film or gaffer’s tape”—he was brilliant, at first. But then he too gets boring, repetitive, and very, very depressed. Ultimately, these three (along with Miuccia Prada and Consuelo Castiglioni, and others) do change the look of pop culture, from the glamazon to the waif, from hair metal to grunge, from Versace to Versus. In the meantime, they all consume loads of coke, heroin, and sex. Perhaps it’s a testament to Kate Moss’s ineffable style, but her chapters are the strongest, while Jacobs’s battles with fashion’s corporate overseers are the least interesting. The sections on the self-destructive McQueen simply feel ominous. Still, this book works as a fun, if cautionary, read about some of the folks who changed fashion in the 1990s. Readers will wonder when a similar trio will arrive to save us all from the Kardashians. (Sept.)