How Books Became Fashion’s Latest Status Symbol

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0:49Hello and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion, where each week we delve into our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. Lately, if you've been scrolling social media or walked by a luxury store display, you may have noticed an unlikely accessory showing up everywhere. Books. Brands from Coach to Dior to Chanel are embracing literature through products, campaigns, bookstores, library installations, and literary salons. And they're doing it at the exact moment that reading rates are actually declining.

1:23According to one recent study, 40 % fewer Americans read for pleasure in 2025 than they did in 2003. So why is fashion suddenly so fascinated with books? The contradiction is real, but that might be the point. In a world saturated with digital content, the book has started to feel like proof of something. That you slowed down, that you paid attention, that you know things that you didn't learn from your Instagram feed. Fashion has also noticed consumers are hungry. fashion has also noticed consumers are hungry for that exact feeling. But is the industry engaging with literature itself or simply the image of it?

1:58To help us answer that question, I'm joined by BOF reporters Haley Crawford and Shiza Wallet. Haley, Shiza, welcome to The Debrief. Thanks for having us, Sheena. Thank you, Sheena. So I want to start this conversation with what struck me most when I was reading your story, which is that it doesn't feel like a coincidence anymore. Like, we're not talking about one brand hosting a book club or a one-off collab. We're talking about literally bookstores, literary salons, book-themed product launches, publishing partnerships, all of this stuff that's showing up across the industry. So Shiaz, I'll start with you first.

2:32What was the moment that you realized that this was something bigger than a handful of one-off initiatives? How did this become a story? I think this is one of the most fun stories that I've had the pleasure of doing. It came up in a really collaborative way. I brought it up in a newsroom meeting. I was like, oh, are you guys kind of noticing that it feels like literature has reached this kind of bubbling point across fashion? I mean, to your point, you know, we've seen maybe ads with books in it, people are reading, but it came to a point where we felt like books were being productized by fashion itself, that we were seeing these book back charms from Coach.

3:05We were seeing, you know, the Dior, Jonathan Anderson toes, I'll say Dracula, you know, and I think that kind of became a starting point for everyone to start discussing about, oh, I'm actually seeing like this magazine pop up and a brand has showed up there as well. There was this Bottega bag at the Strand bookstore and then this library in Shanghai by Chanel. And so all of us started up coming up with all these examples and ideas. And we felt like, you know, this is really a must do. It feels like it's particularly heightened now because literature has always inspired fashion. But this moment felt like this juncture almost that we were reaching where it was no longer covert in any way.

3:41Haley, what about you? I mean, this is something that we discuss a lot in the newsrooms. It's not exactly like burnt orange being hot for fall. Like we kind of had to put our heads together and say, is this a story? Is there a there there? Haley, you obviously focus on marketing a lot for BOF. What was the moment for you when you said, hmm, this is a story? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, books in fashion are is not particularly new. You know, back in 2015, I believe it was. Celine cast Joan Didion in a campaign which, sparked a lot of buzz in the industry. Olympia Latton was creating book-inspired clutches back in 2009.

4:17So it's been bubbling up for a few years. But to Cheyenne's point, when we put our heads together and started listing out everything that was happening in the past year alone, we each came up with 10, 20 examples easily. So when we say three is a trend, 30 or 40 examples is absolutely a trend. So it definitely felt like the right time to jump in and explore it more deeply. Well, you know, the other interesting thing about this story to me is like we say it's a trend or it's bigger than a trend and that we've seen patterns, but there's like numbers that don't actually match the pattern. That book reading is actually declining and maybe one might think this is a little performative.

5:00Like if everyone's walking around with these books in a fashion campaign or there's all these collabs, why isn't readership going up? Talk to me about how you made sense of that contradiction in your reporting, because I think I've alluded to this already. That's probably partly the point. I think that performance question was really at the heart of our reporting, Sheena, to your point. I mean, it felt like we wanted to find people who could talk to the fact that fashion always seems to, you know, latch onto different cultural mediums, whether it's film, music or art. And it felt like literature was kind of this last front to showcase intellectualism, this performance of I understand culture better.

5:36That's why I'm carrying this book bag or this book charm. Like people want to separate themselves and differentiate themselves a bit more nowadays. And it felt like fashion companies have also latched on to and have an understanding that people do want to differentiate themselves that way. One of the people I had the pleasure of speaking to for this piece was Eugene Rapkin, who runs Style Zeitgeist, but also kind of a philosopher. He has a book coming out and he told me something that kind of stayed with me and was a through line in the early stages of writing this story, which is that it seems like fashion's relationship with literature has gone from symbiotic to parasitic.

6:11And I feel like that performance element is very much at the heart of that statement, which is that it feels like we're almost needing to project something onto fashion for us to find meaning in it. And I feel like that was one of the part of the story that I feel like came through really well. But I know Haley will have more to say about, you know, what she thinks that, you know, different brands are doing to showcase that in a kind of maybe authentic or more genuine way. Now that you said that, I have a different question for Haley on the heels of that, which is in your reporting, in your conversations, did you get the sense that brands are interested in literature itself or the authors of literature, or are they interested in what that would communicate to their customers?

6:49Yeah. I mean, I think brands, you know, by the very nature of literature, it's such an exciting playing field for brands. There's so many stories that they can mine and they can connect with their consumers directly through the very stories that their customers love. A great example is Coach. When they were putting together these book bag charms, which are literal legible books with Penguin, they actually asked their Gen Z consumers, hey, what are your favorite books? What are you guys reading? So that was a way to actually identify and learn more about their core consumer group, which is a great way of going about this.

7:22And one of my favorite insights came from a conversation with Anna Seidel, who sits at a really interesting intersection. She's a business economist, but also a poet and a literary curator. And she said that desire comes from discovery. And I think when you can just glimpse or catch a glimpse of an image online very quickly, there's no kind of barrier to entry and that kind of reduces the scarcity effect. So if luxury is trying to sort of rebuild its, you know, scarcity appeal, you know, literature is such a great way to do that because it is more challenging to access. You actually have to take the time to read a book from cover to cover.

7:59And to your point, Sheena, fewer people are doing that today. So it is more of a flex to, you know, have read the book and actually understand the reference. It's not like you can see a picture and get it. You have to actually read the 400-page tome to be able to really genuinely connect with a brand that's portraying a certain book. In a time when so much of fashion is more about provenance when it comes to connecting to consumers, to Haley's point, I feel like brands who are able to kind of manufacture some sort of meaning and actually tell a story are the ones that are connecting through this like entire literary hype around their products a bit more.

8:35The other thing is there is an irony here around what is fueling some of this trend, some of the conversation. It's coming from book talk. So like TikTok, the trend around people sharing their books online. That's another contradiction. It's kind of like we're all about getting analog in 2026, especially Gen Z, because they're so sick of, you know, AI and everything being, you know, digitized that they want to get back to analog culture. But how much of this is actually coming through the Internet and TikTok and Instagram? I think BookTok has a really big role to play, especially for like a younger generation of consumers, because it shows them that these are like young, exciting authors or they're going back to literary classics and they're finding themselves signaling that through their fashion.

9:16And then companies are plugging into that as well. So it's kind of created this ecosystem effect. I think the fact that your social media, the stores and the products you're buying and what you're kind of interested in, like this analog signaling, all are kind of coming together. So I think it has a really big role to play. I also think that to just underscore the irony, I think it's funny because what other ways are people finding community? Like, I think that's also something to think about through this conversation. It's like people find analog communities through online now. So I think this entire move is parallel to that, which is like, you know, you're finding books you want, but through recommendations online.

9:50So I don't think this is kind of happening in a silo. I think it's very interconnected to other forms of analog connection that people are finding nowadays. Yeah. And just to jump in on that point about community, it's also like there are just new realms that I think consumers like didn't know maybe that other people in their age group were resonating with so much. I think romanticity is such a great example. I mean, it has such a huge fandom around it and there's just all these online community, whether it's like a Reddit thread or, you know, a sub stack devoted to it or again, a book talk account.

10:21I think it's like you may not have been able to even identify these other people with these shared fandoms before. And now, So, yeah, I can translate to analog offline, you know, gatherings, et cetera, as well, but in book clubs. But I think to Cheyenne's point, identifying that online for these real, really engaged fandoms is super interesting, too. So this is a nice segue into the authenticity question here, which is that I wouldn't know romanticity because I'm not a part of that world. And so for brands to authentically connect with this, they have to sort of buy into it. I want to ask you both about the example that you thought really nailed this.

10:55I know we talked a lot about the coach bag charms. I think Miu Miu came up as a really prominent example in your story because Mucha Prada has a longstanding intellectual interest. Like she's known for having that. But is there anything that stood out to you? Like they really got this right? Particularly you would give them the gold star for executing on this. Yeah, I feel like two examples come to mind really quickly. One, to kind of expand on the mutual Prada world, is Prada had a campaign starring Carey Mulligan called Ten Protagonists. And they had essentially the author of my year of rest and relaxation, Otessa Moshfag, write ten vignettes essentially that told the story of ten different characters, which very much connects to Prada's questions of identity and archetypes.

11:44And it sort of built out these characters that consumers could identify with in a deeper way. And so I thought partnering directly with an author, of course, was, you know, such a strong way of doing that. And they do it in different ways as well. They work directly with Olga Campofreda, who's a professor of literature and Italian culture, who, you know, is the one who curates the speakers for the Miu Miu Literary Club. So that, you know, once again, is very authentic. But I think one of my favorite examples is the Italian jewelry house Buccellati, which basically worked with Anna Seidel, who was the poet slash economist who I mentioned earlier.

12:20And essentially, they were founded in the early 1900s. And, you know, in thinking about how to host this very intimate dinner that they were hosting for clients, Seidel was looking through the archives and she found really old jewelry boxes from one of the house's first clients, the Italian poet Gabriele D 'Annunzio, who had engraved poems on the back of these jewelry boxes. And so using those as inspirations, she wrote new poems that kind of connected this history to the contemporary pieces and read them in like a literary salon style at this dinner, which I found fascinating sort of in blending the history, this very, you know, yeah, like deep rooted Italian literary world that this brand has always sort of interacted with and its modern day standing and client.

13:08So I thought that was a really unique way to use literature to tell what it's designed to do, which is to tell a story. That's amazing. You also just cannot architecture that. You can't force that to happen, that kind of story. Speaking of authenticity being something that is genuine. So, Isa, what was your favorite example of brands really nailing this? I think I'm looking at it from a different angle completely, which I think is quite exciting. And it's probably because of the people I spoke to. But I think my favorite example was actually not even a brand using it in a product or or in their ads but chanel helping fund this art museum library in shanghai and that museum was like financially struggling and so you know chanel has like a plaque there that they helped fund it but it was actually funding something which actually draw more people in and allow people to engage with books and literature because it's a library and it's not something that needs to be flashy but it was very clear from like an actual literary and engagement standpoint it was something they wanted to signal and say we actually care about this.

14:04And I feel like that's something that truly comes off as authentic, because I do want to say as much as, you know, we have like the Miu Miu book club, there's also Jill Sonder book club slash like installation at Salon in Milan, like earlier this year. And I think all these are like great examples. But at the end of the day, authenticity does feel subjective. And the second that a product or a branding is associated with it, it's sometimes hard to feel like it is. It's like this is an amazing book installation. And just for$125, you too can be a literary is basically what you're pushing back against right yeah exactly and I think it's this idea that when everyone at the at some of these clubs are like wearing the brands you know clothing and then it's going on Instagram it does feel like you know yes it can feel authentic because of the brand's image and what it stands for but also like this idea of performance and branding and this exercise all together that's why I really like that Chanel example that I was talking about because it feels like it wasn't necessarily latched onto that entire kind of ecosystem of branding altogether.

15:02Yeah. That's a tension that we've talked about a lot on the debrief is like these things that feel wholesome and even some of it feels charitable or philanthropic. And then you add the price tag, especially a luxury price tag, by the way. And then suddenly you're like, well, is this, is this genuine anymore? And I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, but I think that's a fair point. Also, if we're going to stay in the criticism lane of this, right? On the flip side, if we see every brand start doing this trend, like this is the reason why it's a hard one to pile into, not for lack of trying on the side of brands, but it is a hard one to pile into because once you do it, the concept eventually loses its power.

15:38Like I'll ask both of you, do you think that this is one of those things that brands, more brands will try to participate in Haley? Like, do you see a runway for this or is this going to stay within a particular subset of brands? Yeah. I mean, I definitely feel like we're probably approaching the peak of this right now. It's been, you know, hot for, you know, a year or two now. And there's this huge volume of brands playing in it that I do think will start to see a decrease, you know, and the risk of this concept kind of losing its like novelty and cultural power definitely exists, especially as brands kind of jump on the bandwagon and aren't really engaging in real ways.

16:14I do think the ones that have, you know, been doing it for quite some time, you know, like the Mew Mews will continue to do so. And I just think the brands that have experimented with it and, you know, are seeing, okay, does this resonate with my consumer? They'll continue down that lane. But those that have maybe slapped a book name on a t-shirt or created a book tote of their own might see less success. But yeah. Yeah. I do want to add to that and say that I think the second will, like consumers and people will start noticing the corporatization of this trend, it is going to start becoming a bit more stale and I think it goes to the point of like you know 20 years ago when like a helmet lang or muchia they did collaborations with literary kind of figures or artistic figures it felt very personal to them it was a friend it was someone they really resonated with and there was this greater sense of authorship and control whereas now I think if we start seeing it enter the mass market which will probably do it because it's become popular it's not going to do it because it needs the cultural cachet I think big brands which are more mass market they're not trying to latch onto cultural cachet like luxury is, we will start seeing this trend not feel like something special anymore, you know, feel like something that kind of maybe fizzled out in a way, but is, I suppose, still ubiquitous, you know, because books aren't going anywhere.

17:29Absolutely. And something else that I think is important to note here is that the book world literature has its own hierarchy. We've seen this with art as well, where sometimes, you know, fashion will say we'd love to engage with this amazing Picasso piece and that world is like wait a minute you don't have the the history or the cachet to be a part of this how do you see that impacting the longevity of this trend like is the book world pushing back against fashion trying to to co-opt a little bit of its its cultural cachet right now I actually feel like I've seen you know maybe these are you know smaller more like indie players in the book world I actually have seen libraries and bookstores really embracing this trend.

18:10I think when it's done right, one that comes to mind is Scene Library. And they host, you know, a lot of pop-ups and events themselves. And they're really interested in actively engaging their community, you know, and they, you know, they've worked with a number of brands like Lisa Says Gah. And one of my favorite examples, and I think it just shows a nice way that there can be like a nice collaborative feel and it makes the books not feel like they're just being co-opted and, you know, latched on to is they collaborated with Dolce Vita, which is an accessories brand, you know, very female focused.

18:42And they hosted an event in LA, which was like not at all to Cheyenne's point earlier, not at all tied to a product, not at all. It was just tied to community building. And Scene Library was in charge of the guest list. They invited members of their own community to then pick and choose books. It was a number of books kind of curated around themes of women's female empowerment. And then they got talking about, you know, why they chose the titles they did. And it brought up stories of immigration and motherhood and family and trauma. And it kind of brought the community together more closely and obviously introduced new people to the Dolce Vita brand.

19:18But I thought that was done in a way where the library, you know, was so actively involved that it was only a good thing for them, really. That's so, so fascinating. I feel like, I think to Haley's point Sheena like I think when you look at independent kind of organizations like whether it's a small bookstore or whether it's you know an organization like Seen Library I think they are able to use this popularity in a way that can feel really meaningful but I think what you were alluding to in your question was also this fact you know are some people in the literary world kind of maybe annoyed at fashion trying to kind of leech off of it which fashion's done with a lot of industries I think fashion media in general and a lot of brands I think there's a huge amount of mutual validation that happens when they latch onto something that feels intellectual or flashy in that moment or really big.

20:01And I do think there is some criticism. I don't want to mention Eugene again, but I also spoke to an editor at Idea Books here in London, which a lot of brands and designers use for visual inspiration. They're like these big photo books from ages ago. And even then, there was this idea that luxuries always wanted to signal cultural caches, superiority and I think a lot of people in the literary world do find it a bit annoying that you know someone who's probably never read some of these books might be you know using it as a way to signal that they're smart and intelligent which is literally kind of at the core of this whole trend people trying to signal that they're smart but I think at the same time it's kind of balanced by the fact that all the book symbols we see the products we see oftentimes they're latched onto classics because everyone can recognize a classic and what it signals and what it says, or something about that story.

20:52And so I don't think it will be the case of some really niche writer, having their book on, you know, on a product and feeling, okay, this person doesn't even really understand where I'm coming from. Because I think one, if that happens, or one that happens, I think fashionable have totally lost the plot. But I do think that to your point, there is definitely some friction there between the two industries. Yeah, the more we have the conversation, and even, you know, in reading your story, I kept thinking, I don't know if this is fully, truly a conversation about books. I think it's also a conversation about what consumers want right now.

21:28And then I don't think it's just Gen Z that's moving away from digital or AI. But I think a lot of people, both of you mentioned some aspects of community earlier, but people are looking for something more real. So what can fashion learn from this moment that maybe is not a moment, but about books? What can they take forward from this to their marketing, to their products? What's the key takeaway? I think the one learning here, and it's something that we've been tracking at BOF for, I think, in so many stories across different beats, is this idea that fashion has increasingly become about provenance and not so much just about what you see, but about what the story is behind the product.

22:09And I think that's something that this trend really shows us kind of a deeper side of and maybe a philosophical side of that. I think people who are like marketing heads in their companies or, you know, they're trying to look at how they're going to do a certain launch. They should probably be thinking about this at a deeper level. Absolutely. And just to build on that, I think consumers, to your point earlier, Sheena, like consumers are kind of exhausted by this digital overload by AI. And I think, you know, with imagery and video, so, you know, becoming increasingly difficult also to decipher as real versus fake, like there is something very comforting, like about, you know, a good old fashioned hardcover book, something that you know you can authentically engage with.

22:51And I think, yeah, to both of your points, just this desire for something that goes a little deeper. And even to the question of provenance, I think, you know, luxury is so easily consumed online now. even a Birkin bag, which was like the height of luxury for so long. Now you can just like, you know, yes, there's all the story about how it's made, etc. But you can just watch an unboxing so quickly on TikTok now. And part of that almost loses its sheen or its appeal. And so, you know, leaning more into cultural capital, again, and something deeper, I think this is like signaling definitely a shift in people wanting that and knowledge and deeper connection over just, you know, something visual or even just a product.

23:33I will add to that, that brands can't rely on pure aestheticization anymore. And I think that's something that they need to really have embedded in their marketing strategies and how they sell stuff to people. Because I don't think, I think customers are smarter than ever. You can't just go after a cash grab when something's really popular anymore. I think people really do feel it and understand it the second they engage with it meaningfully now. Absolutely. I want to throw in one wildcard question. For each of you, what is one of the products in the world of book affiliated fashion collabs that you would most authentically be able to own and walk around with?

24:11I think coaches penguin random house collaboration and they have a lot of different uh book charms and things like that but I think the one of Maya Angelou's I know where the cage bird sings was is something that feels very particular and I don't think everyone's gonna lean and pick that up per se especially like the young gen z coach customer maybe that's for like an older audience but I think that's one that feels very cool and true to like I guess my my my reading diet yeah for sure. Haley, what are you picking up to sport around Bryant Park this summer that's going to match your vibe? I think to Shayez's point, something that authentically represents what I read, you know, oh my gosh, the dream would be an Olympia Latent, you know, custom embroidered clutch, you know, with Demon Copperhead, which was one of my favorite books of the past few years or something like that.

25:03I mean, again, I think it just has to really point to, I love Shayez's worthy. You're reading diet. I think that's kind of the point. So absolutely. And I have a couple pieces, you know, hats. I was complaining about slapping a logo on something, but I do have a few, you know, caps from indie bookstores that I genuinely shop from. And, you know, I'm all about supporting the small bookstores. So if you can get the word out there, why not? Why not rock it? Absolutely. And I'm going to get literary diet, like emblazoned on a t-shirt. Thank you for sharing that. Haley, Shiza, thanks so much for joining us today.

25:37Thanks for having us, Sheena. Thank you, Sheena. If today's conversation left you wanting to go deeper, Haley and Shiza's full article, How Books Became Fashion's Favorite Flex, is linked in the episode notes. And while you're there, check out their wider coverage of marketing, retail, and sustainability at businessoffashion.com. These and other stories are available to VOF professional subscribers only. You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies and Angel Nemov. I'm Sheena Butler-Young. Thanks for listening, and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcast.

26:07We'll see you next week.

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