Sample: n.
pron: ‘sam-p&l

1. a specimen.
2. a highly coveted garment, available at a discounted price, known to spark irrational and desperate behavior in females, including pushing, grabbing and stampeding.
3. your new fashion bible.

Sample is a beautiful new book that captures the styles and visions of 100 of today’s greatest fashion designers from all over the world, from Viktor & Rolf and Hedi Slimane to Olivier Theyskens and Proenza Schouler. Works in progress are showcased in scrapbook form as a mixture of archive material, design sketches and never-seen-before photographs.

Accompanying the graphics are essays by such fashion bigwigs as Harriet Quick, Brana Wolf, Tim Blanks and Alexander McQueen. Edited by Bronwyn Cosgrave, the pleated-paper hardback is itself an embodiment of the ever-changing influences in fashion today.

Quite a specimen, indeed.

Available in bookstores from July 1; available online now at phaidon.com.