Three must-have books for fashion lovers, from sketch pad to runway to retail

• Drawing Fashion: The Art of Kenneth Paul Block, by Susan Mulcahy; Foreword by Yves Saint Laurent, Introduction by Isaac Mizrahi | Drawing Fashion presents the remarkable portfolio of Kenneth Paul Block, one of the most influential fashion illustrators of the twentieth century. His first job was at the powerful Women’s Wear Daily in the 1950s, an association that lasted more 30 years and where Kenneth witnessed and recorded one of the most important periods in fashion history—the postwar shift as the exclusive world of couture transformed into prêt-à-porter. Attending all the major fashion shows in Paris, London, and New York, Kenneth was the first one on the scene, drawing the latest style-setting clothes from such venerable houses as Balenciaga, Chanel, and Saint Laurent.

• Monsieur Dior: Once Upon a Time, by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni | As women were starved for glamour following the Second World War, Christian Dior’s New Look was revolutionary in bringing femininity back to fashion with a bold use of fabric and silhouetted lines. With dazzling images by photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lord Snowdon, and Willy Maywald, as well as never-before-seen materials from the Dior Archives, this account is a fresh and surprising view into the House of Dior and life of its brilliant founder. Presented in an elegant silver-embossed box.

• Dawn: The Career of the Legendary Fashion Retailer Dawn Mello, by John Tiffany, Forward by Tom Ford | The inspiring story of the fashion-forward model-turned-retail executive who ushered in a new era of luxury in American retail. In her pioneering career, the elegant Dawn Mello redefined a once-dowdy Bergdorf Goodman department store, breathed new life into a fading and then-unfashionable Gucci brand, and launched and nurtured the careers of some of the era’s top design talents, including Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Jo Malone, Michael Kors, Donna Karan, Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein, Gian Franco Ferre, Azzedine Alaia…the list goes on.