Gods and Kings

The "New York Times" bestselling author of "Deluxe "chronicles the making and unmaking of two of the greatest fashion designers of our time In the mid-1990s, John Galliano and Alexander McQueenexploded onto a fashion scene that was in an artistic and economic rut. Their daring visions shook the establishment out of its bourgeois, minimaliststupor with vibrant, sexy designs and theatricalrunway shows. By the end of the decade, each had been hired to run one of couture s most storied houses, Galliano at Dior and McQueen at Givenchy. They were icons of a new generation of rock-star designers who headlined the transformation of luxury fashion from a small clutch of family-owned businesses into a global, multibillion-dollar corporate industry. But the pace was unsustainable. In 2010, McQueen took his own life. A year later, Galliano was fired in the wake of an alcohol-fueled, anti-Semitic diatribe. In her groundbreaking work"Gods and Kings," acclaimed fashion journalist Dana Thomas tells