With its strident motto "Export or Die!" The Ambassador magazine Promoting Post-War British Textiles and Fashion has been described as "probably the most daring and enterprising trade magazine ever conceived" and this luxurious volume published by the V&A Museum shows us how accurate an epithet this was. With its innovative design and swashbuckling editorial approach driven by the vision of its founder, Hans Juda, and his wife Elsbeth, who was the brains behind its striking photography, its aim was to promote British fashion, textiles and design in a full-on, pulling-no-punches manner, focussing on the strengths of British industry with no lights hidden under any bushels. From March 1946 to August 1972 the Judas used their plentiful connections to the fashion and artistic worlds to set up ambitious photoshoots to highlight innovations in textiles and showcase the latest couture fashions, and the magazine featured many works from luminaries such as John Piper and Graham Sutherland who produced art especially for it. The Judas sold the magazine to the multinational publisher Thomson in 1961 who, as well as being less interested in cultural nuance and creative vision than their predecessors, also inherited a shift in economics and politics that saw most of the world's textile manufacturing shift to the Far East and, albeit gradually, The Ambassador's raison d'être faded. With hundreds of illus in colour and b/w taken from the magazine's archive, here are some of the most striking and iconic photos, designs, artworks, advertisements and people, together with contributary essays from seven experts from the V&A's art, fashion, design and photography departments. The photoshoots are quite superb, but some of the more ephemeral items are equally fascinating, such as Lacrinoid "opalite" buttons - " for every garment... retain their brilliance in spite of sun, rain and extremes of heat and cold" - marvellous! 240 opulent 9¼"×12½" pages.

86 near life-size figures of the male ancestors of Christ once looked down on the choir and eastern extension of the medieval cathedral and priory church of Canterbury. Made of stained glass, the ancestors of Christ windows illuminated liturgical areas all year round. Dating from the 12th-century, the surviving windows from the series are among the oldest panels of stained glass in England. Canterbury Cathedral's 'Ancestors of Christ' windows from the 12th century depict the male ancestors of Jesus Christ as they were listed in the Gospel of Luke, from Adam to Christ. The Old Testament patriarchs have inspired reverence and admiration in person for hundreds of years and, in this book, readers can admire photos of them while also learning the original context, iconographic program and the windows' stylistic development. The 86 works of art were created in 1178 and not all of them remain, but the 43 still in place include images of Naasson, who was head of the tribe of Judah, and Ezekias, who was a king of Judah but fell ill when Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrian king, to the figures of Moses and Jethro with Moses seated in a throne listening to his father-in-law urging him to appoint officers to help him rule. Most of the figures were removed in the late 18th century and transferred to either the west windows of the nave or the southwest transept window, with 17 original borders (without their figures) remaining in the clerestory. Learn about Lamech, who represents the eighth generation since Adam and was the last figure in the 'Ancestors of Christ' sequence to be attributed to the Methuselah Master. The book admires Jared, the fifth generation since Adam, who is rendered in a confident manner sitting on a golden, backless throne with wide decorative bands around his neck and at the cuffs. Noah, the ninth generation since Adam, is depicted in his window as looking up and being animated as if in conversation, an appropriate action given that God spoke to Noah and instructed him to build the ark. The brilliance of the book includes a photograph of art, from the Great West Window at the end of the cathedral's nave which is home to the Gothic window in the west wall was thought to have been created by 1400 AD, to 'The Exodus of the Israelites' found in the north choir aisle of the cathedral which depicts Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt away from the Pharaoh. Paperback, 7.5" x 10.9", colour images, 104pp.

The author of her bestselling debut novel 'The Time Traveler's Wife', Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and a faculty member at Columbia College in Chicago. As well as strange self-portraits and recent drawings on the themes of birth, death and books, Niffenegger's art is a vital part of her vision, cultivating a captivating narrative exclusively through pictures to deal with life, mortality and magic. Her fantastical body of work is reminiscent of renowned pen and ink predecessors such as Edward Gorey, Aubrey Beardsley, Egon Schiele, Edward Dulac and Horst Janssen, but with a brutally honest and unapologetically strange female perspective. Her works on paper, lithograph and aquatints reflect the often surreal narrative of her books, whimsy alongside anxiety and loneliness, probing darker corners of the human heart and mind. There is the skeleton torso above a giant elongated dress of roses entitled Black Roses in Memory of Isabella Blow, Skeletons Enveloping Naked Women, two very small waists with a skeleton to one side and a corseted woman (armless) in a colour drawing, a beautifully rendered self portrait with Philip Treacy Hat and many other self portraits with a nesting bird on top of her head in the section entitled States of Mind. Our favourites are her Adventures in Bookland, with figures reading or being tossed into a wonderland and images from her books The Three Incestuous Sisters and The Adventuress, with captions such as 'He was a butterfly collector and tried to capture her', and 'All the books were about Napoleon; being a moth, she ate them all.' With introductory essays on her art, magic and dreamworld, and a useful chronology and exhibition checklist. 75 full colour plates, many double page including book illustrations, plus images used through the essays, this is a very glamorous 120 page 24.8 x 28.6cm publication with heavy paper and colour.
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Opening our eyes to the beauty of all humans, regardless of their born gender, this outsize publication by the famous erotica photographer includes a CD of all the artistic content. The subject is extraordinary, masterfully executed portraits of unknown people willing to be photographed after contact via social media, who all have something to say about their own sexuality. 20 years after the publication Modern Lovers, a body of work on androgyny and transgender, Bettina Rheims now presents Gender Studies and in the light of current controversial debates on gender theory, her models display remarkable courage by questioning, modifying and celebrating their identities. There are women who have had their breasts removed and nipples re-inserted who truly look like men, beautiful women who still have a penis, hair, makeup, tattoos, and the photographer has asked each model to wear torn bandage-style neutral underwear in some cases, but mostly near nudity against a whitened background. Colour, 76 pages, 25.5 x 33.5cm.

Brothers at Rest (1875-76) by Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) shows four young men, two naked, two getting dressed on a summer's day, relaxing after they have been bathing, painted in summery colours of green and blue sky with puffy clouds and a country scene. There are recognisable French villages, still life, the Nudes in Landscape, Boy in Red Vest, Leda and the Swan with the titian-haired nude, Woman with Green Hat, the gorgeous amber and green hues of Bibemus Quarry of 1898 and dozens more favourites in this book of 30 postcards offering a rich sampling of his paintings. Cezanne is closely associated with the Impressionists, yet his paintings remain highly distinctive for their unique colouring, quality of light, and striking placement and treatment of subject matter. These outstanding examples of his genius come from the collection of The Barnes Foundation. Quality heavy glossy white paper, superb full page colour in softback with 30 detachable oversized postcards.

The leaves of the coca plant from Peru are the organic source from which cocaine is synthesised but it also has medicinal and healing properties, just without the same addictive qualities or negative side effects. Its most famous commercial appearance was in the 19th century when Corsican pharmacist Angelo Mariani produced 'Vin Mariani', a coca-based tonic wine which was praised by prominent figures such as Pope Benedict XV, Sarah Bernhardt, Thomas Edison, H. G. Wells, William McKinley and Emile Zola. This illustrated history explores a fascinating history, from the coca plant's medical applications to the creation of the tonic wine. Hailed as the 'vogue beverage of la Belle Époque' the tonic wine was in fact created by the infusion of coca leaves in Bordeaux wine, and notably became the forerunner for Coca-Cola. It found success through a genius marketing practice which included advertising using hundreds of postcards illustrated by famous artists, silver and bronze medals and objects magnificently engraved such as silver jewellery. Mariani's first success with the wine came when Dr Charles Fauvel recommended him to Georges Régnal, a female singer, who tasted his new preparation, meditated for a while and, after a moment, said: 'It is excellent, you'll send me a dozen bottles.' The wine's success went so far that, after the 1889 influenza outbreak in Paris, the coca wine was one of the most highly recommended drugs and Dr Fauvel humorously christened it 'the lightning rod of the flu'. It was not always easy for Mariani and, in 1903, a pharmacist in Marseilles called Antoine Mariani took advantage of having the same last name and launched a tonic wine 'à la coca de Pérou' that he sold misleadingly in a bottle with a label similar to the original. In the end, Angelo had to reluctantly take the plagiarist to court and, on 4 August 1905, the fraud was found guilty. Mariani's work not only went into medicinal wines but also into the Orphelinat des Arts association in 1882 which he took care of. The organisation was founded in 1880 by the actress Marie Laurent, with the help of friends such as Sarah Bernhardt, and it was an education centre for young girls who were the children of dramatic artists, painters sculptors, architects, writers, musicians, journalists and literary people. There are also stunning images used in the book, including a drawing from a New York magazine advertising the bottle and a poster for 'Elixir Peruvien' by Leonetto Cappiello in 1902, to a photo of an authentic advertisement for Coca-Bola chewing gum. 8" x 10", gorgeous colour images, posters and Art Deco designs, 246pp.

Architect Josef Hoffmann and designer and painter Koloman Moser founded the Vienna Workshop or Wiener Werkstätte after parting ways with the Vienna Secession. From 1903-32 the cooperative of artists created highly decorative everyday objects driven by quality of design and bolstered by the support of Vienna's elite. The group produced furniture, textiles, postcards, ceramics, jewellery and more and 30 artworks are included in this book of postcards, repeating patterns in bold colours, floral designs in teal, peach and orange such as Florentina by Mathilde Flögl (1893-1950) or Valentine Kovacic's Harlem in blue with green and sage, shown in detail, a thistle type floral design. Glossy white detachable postcards in softback, all in glorious colour and many a detail central to the white bordered postcard.

Our dear late friend ex-Python Terry Jones in his foreword says 'Did they imagine, as they took their poses, that their friends and families would think they had really flown in an aeroplane or a balloon or that they had actually owned an automobile?' Passengers on photographs travelling First Class, driving smart motorcars and motorcycles, with a backdrop of a deck of a ship, one of which looks suspiciously like the Titanic (plate 197), a couple photographed in the dashing speedboat on page 7, a jolly house party deciding to improvise a charabanc from dustbin lids and bits of wood! And he continues 'Why on earth did people have their photographs taken on the beach sitting astride a cut-out donkey?' (plate 58). In papier-mâché planes they brave the clouds or row through a painted sea in half a boat - the revelries of travel in the early years of the 20th century could briefly be realised in the dream factory of the photographer's studio and permanently recorded in the form of a photo postcard. Stern looking couples in the basket of a balloon in a studio in Blackpool, and aboard flying machines in Weston-Super-Mare and Southend, the sometimes huge caricature faces show the joie de vivre and sense of fun with captions like First Stop Berlin. 204 sepia postcards reproduced to the best possible quality, a truly nostalgic step back in time from this Oxford University Bodleian Library publication.

A woman dishes out food from a large golden pot. This Indian lady may be a servant or she may instead have lovingly prepared the food for her own family. Carefully placed around her in the foreground are various vessels and utensils including two sets of tongs, three stemmed cups, two jugs, a ewer and several small banana-leaf bowls. The brilliant palette of mainly yellow, orange and red is suggestive of the hot, fiery food she has cooked. The second image in the collection depicts an obviously wealthier woman who has her meals cooked for her and therefore has time to relax outdoors in a delightful, flower-filled setting. Balanced precariously against the slender trunk of a tree, she reads from a long, narrow book of poetry, and we can only guess that they are verses of mystical love. The palette here is dark and sombre, despite the rich gold of her clothing, her left arm is raised and there is a beautiful translucency in the overskirt. Blank for all occasions, these quality notecards come with ten envelopes and five each of the two designs in a wallet for safe keeping.

'Clothes maketh the man' and, in the case of this work, some of the world's most beloved artists. The profiles 40 plus beloved creatives such as Salvador Dali, Nan Goldin, Steve McQueen, Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, and Frida Kahlo by admiring their sartorial choices alongside a mix of anecdotes, portraits and commentary from critics, designers and the artists themselves. Admire how contemporary painter Elizabeth Peyton moves from a new-wave view of the world to a delicate dreamy style, celebrated through the words of curator Andrew Bolton who said: 'People like fashion for its immediacy, democracy, and idealism... And the same applies to Elizabeth's work.' Pablo Picasso who dressed in mended overalls, fisherman sweaters and shapeless work jackets and said: 'Those who try to explain a picture are on the wrong track most of the time.' Celebrate the style of William Merritt Chase who 'encouraged individuality' for his students who walked his wolfhound around Greenwich Village and wore a white flannel suit while painting and a top hat with spats while out on the town. Also includes 'Signature Looks' sections, such as a meditation on suits worn by Cecil Beaton, Max Ernst and Jeff Koons, all of whom are examples of how self-possessed tailoring doesn't hinder high concepts in the studio. Another section looks at glasses and how they are not a rotational wardrobe item but a representation of what an artist does well, from Takashi Murakami's thin wire-frame circles to Richard Avedon's pair of mobster aviators which inspired Garrett Leight to design an Avedon frame in 2015. The book might inspire a reader to adopt a hat, such as Bruce Nauman and his unfussy Stetson from Nudie's Rodeo Tailors, Grayson Perry's sweet bonnets made from bows, flowers, lace, satin and ribbons, or René Magritte's bowler hat which was used as a motif in many of his paintings. This book would be nothing without the photographs which share fantastic artistic shots of icons, from Anton Josef Tr?ka's portrait of Egon Schiele in 1914 and an image of Marina Abramovi? with model and author Crystal Renn in the August 2014 issue of Vogue Ukraine, to an action shot of a hooded Andy Warhol-print cape worn with a matching skirt, sheer top, and sunglasses in the Stephen Sprouse Spring/Summer 1998 collection. The book examines the dialogue between art and fashion as well as noteworthy artist and designer relationships, such as Yves Saint Laurent?s Mondrian Collection, primary-colored shift dresses inspired by the painter?s work, and Louis Vuitton?s numerous groundbreaking collaborations with major artists, a concept initiated by designer Marc Jacobs that not only has launched some of the fashion industry?s most successful bags, made the art of contemporary masters available to the world at large, and been copied widely ever since. This is a gorgeous encyclopaedia of all things beauty, fashion and art. 7.4" x 9.7", colour images, 210pp.