Surrealism Revisited: 5 Essential Books to Decode Fashion’s Fascination in 2025
As the surreal resurfaces across runways, we round up key coffee table titles to leave your living room a little bit chicer
In times of uncertainty, it’s only natural that we turn to dreamscapes. History has shown that periods of seismic shifts often bring a renewed appetite for the surreal—narratives that bend reality, embrace the uncanny, and allow us to reimagine the world as we know it. Today, surrealism is living a double life—not only alive in the art world, but reinvented on the runway.
From Daniel Roseberry’s fantastical Schiaparelli couture, with its golden lungs and cosmic bustiers, to Jonathan Anderson’s distorted forms at Loewe and Simon Porte Jacquemus’ playful experiments with scale, surrealist language is everywhere. Even Rahul Mishra, with his sculptural embroidery and dreamlike couture, taps into this sensibility—transforming nature into surreal landscapes stitched in gold and silk. What began as a radical art movement in the early 20th century now shapes the way fashion tells stories in 2025.
If you’ve found yourself captivated by this resurgence, the following five books serve as companions for decoding the surrealist threads running through both art and fashion today.
1. Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli
The legacy of surrealism in fashion begins here. This richly illustrated volume explores Elsa Schiaparelli’s collaborations with Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, where couture became a canvas for dream logic. Today, Roseberry’s revival of the house continues her tradition of the fantastical.
2. Remedios Varo: The Mexican Years – Luis-Martín Lozano
While European surrealism often dominates the conversation, Remedios Varo’s paintings—full of mysticism, alchemy, and feminine archetypes, offer a different vision. Her work resonates deeply with contemporary fashion’s fascination with storytelling and spirituality, from Loewe’s ethereal stagings to Jacquemus’ dreamlike narratives.
3. Sufism & Surrealism – Adonis
In this seminal text, Syrian poet Adonis bridges Islamic mysticism and surrealist poetics, revealing surprising parallels between two traditions of dream, metaphor, and the unseen. For today’s global fashion landscape—where Schiaparelli’s epic couture resonates strongly with audiences in the Middle East—this book offers a philosophical lens that enriches our understanding of surrealism’s universal pull.
4. Frankenstein in Baghdad – Ahmed Saadawi
Set in post-invasion Baghdad, this award-winning novel tells of a corpse stitched together from war’s debris that comes to life. Haunting yet darkly humorous, it mirrors fashion’s fascination with fragmentation and reconstruction—recalling Maison Margiela’s deconstructive approach, where garments are pulled apart and reassembled into something uncanny and new. Saadawi reminds us that surrealism is not only an aesthetic, but also an allegory for living in fractured times.
5. Magritte: The Treachery of Images – Exhibition Catalogue (LACMA)
René Magritte’s iconic bowler hats, apples, and pipes continue to inspire designers who thrive on playful distortion. Loewe’s balloon heels, Jacquemus’ giant handbags, even trompe l’oeil embroidery on Schiaparelli gowns—all are echoes of Magritte’s challenge to see the familiar anew. This volume is a visual reminder that the surreal often hides in plain sight.
Bonus Read: Balenciaga | Kublin (Ana Balda & María Kublin, 2024)
Though not explicitly tied to surrealism, this recent release is an exquisite reminder of fashion’s ability to construct alternate realities. Showcasing the collaborative work of photographer Tom Kublin and Cristóbal Balenciaga in post-war Paris, the book is filled with rarely seen photographs and film material. If surrealism stretched the imagination through distortion and dream, Balenciaga and Kublin shaped it through pure elegance and precision.
From Fiction to Fashion
Surrealism has always thrived on instability, offering a dream logic when reality feels uncertain. Hence it feels so current amid 2025—alive in museums and reborn on the runway. But as the Balenciaga | Kublin volume reminds us, fashion’s dialogue with art has never been one-dimensional. Whether through the uncanny visions of Magritte and Varo, the mysticism of Adonis, or the photographic elegance of Kublin, fashion is revealed as more than clothing: it is a stage for the imagination, where art and life constantly intertwine.
Lead Image: Harper’s Bazaar Italia, March 2025