Trading figures for Burberry, just out, show Britain’s biggest luxury brand is doing OK despite the wider economic woes. Even so, the company’s had a tricky few years. In the late 90s, Burberry moved to take its own share of the burgeoning market for designer labels. Advertising spend increased and its trademark check, once tucked away discretely in the linings of its raincoats, was applied to everything from socks to handbags. However, Burberry was quickly taken up by a demographic it would have preferred to avoid. Another core British brand, the football hooligan, claimed the label for itself. In 2004, some anxious pub landlords even barred those dressed in Burberry from their premises.

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In 1936, Finnish glass factory Karhula-Iittala (now Iittala) ran a design competition of modern gift items made of glass. The winners would be exhibited at the 1937 Paris World Expo themed “Art and technology as applied in modern life.”

The winner of the competition was an entry named Eskimoerindens Skinnbuxa (Swedish for Eskimo Woman’s Leather Breeches.) The designer behind the entry turned out to be the 38-year-old Finnish architect, Hugo Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). His proposal was a collection of heavy, wavy glass vases and bowls of varying heights and widths.

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Yohji Yamamoto was born in Yokohama, Japan in 1943. He did not always know he wanted to be a fashion designer: he attended Keio University and graduated with a law degree before going on to the Bunka College of Fashion and, later, to Paris, where he studied fashion and fashion design until 1970.

For two years, Yamamoto devoted himself to custom clothing. He is often described as an avant-garde designer: he ignores current trends in favour of creating styles that express his own desires and ideas for clothes instead of the fashion du jour.

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When I was younger I used to love going to stay over at Grandma’s house every Saturday night. I would wake on Sunday mornings to the smell of Grandma’s baking knowing that it wasn’t long until I would be sitting in front of the television set to watch the classic Land of the Giants. It was a show that I used to love, I would often pretend to be one of the small characters in the back yard.

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It would be a mistake to think that Paris 1962 — Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior, The Early Collections is just a coffee-table decoration featuring two gorgeous fashion collections. Published by Rizzoli in April 2008, the 176-page volume is more like a still life. It allows the reader a secret little viewing of a slow-motion film documenting a crucial moment in the world of fashion.

During the week of January 26, 1962, Esquire magazine’s dashing photographer, Jerry Schatzberg pointed his lens at the scenes beside and behind the catwalk and captured the mood of one of fashion’s turning points.

The main occasion was the presentation of Yves Saint Laurent’s first independent collection in the former residence of the painter, Forain, on rue Spontini in Paris. That same week, while Yves Saint Laurent established himself as a star in his own right, Marc Bohan showed his latest collection for Christian Dior. The book covers both shows.

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