Mini: Literature is Fashion’s Newest Muse

What do J.Crew, Tiffany & Co., and Prada all have in common? They’re falling in love with the written word. 

In this Soul & Science mini-episode, Jason explores fashion’s latest unexpected muse: literature. From literary salons to author collaborations, brands are embracing the written word in a digital age—and it's not just for show.

Key Takeaways:
✅ Fashion brands are aligning with literature to appeal to Gen Z’s love of books.
✅ Literary collaborations give brands more depth, substance, and cultural cachet.
✅ In a world of fleeting content, literature offers a timeless counterbalance.

From “BookTok” buzz to billboards with classic quotes, Jason unpacks why the fashion world is rewriting its narrative—and what marketers can learn from it.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the Soul and Science mini Podcasts. I want
to talk today about the fashion industry who seems to
have found a new muse and that new mus people
is odd because it's literature. You wouldn't really think about that.
For years, fashion brands have done collaborations and been inspired
by different aspects of culture, from art to music to film.

(00:35):
You always think of those personalities and those cultural touchdowns
partnering with fashion. But a new mus has emerged on
the runways and in campaigns across the industry, and that
is literature or the written word. The fashion world is
experiencing this literary renaissance. For example, j crwe is hosting

(01:00):
sophisticated literary salons and doing partnerships with the New Yorker
Tiffany and Co. They are having billboards with quotes from
classic authors. Saint Laurent is featuring distinguished literary figures along
with traditional celebrities in their campaigns. And so we're seeing

(01:21):
in the fashion industry to shift towards literature and a
lot of brands are hopping on this trend. Prada is
also doing something very ambitious with The Ten Protagonists, which
is a collection of short stories written by author Odessa Mosfay,
and it's inspired by Prada's designs and modeled by Academy

(01:44):
Award nominated actress Carrie Mulligan. This literary work was really
strategically distributed only at those types of Prada events. So
this calculated literary courtship is really a strategic approach to
connect with younger consumers, particularly gen Z, who have shown

(02:08):
a real passion for literature. And you're seeing this all
over the interwebs on platforms like book Talk, Book, Instagram,
et cetera, where you're seeing a lot of those channels
thrive and really talking about literary taste and showing the
power and the comeback of physical books that are really

(02:31):
thriving even in our digital age. Book sales in twenty
twenty four surged by almost nine percent. So why are
these fashion brands aligning with literature beyond the what we
talked about with gen Z being kind of rekindling the
spirit of books. The reason why is it elevates the

(02:51):
fashion brand and their status because you're connecting to something
that is enduring and meaningful, and this association and raises
the bar for these luxury fashion brands and literature is
more permanent, more real, it's not fleeting, it's here and
more enduring. And so when a fashion house embraces this

(03:13):
or partners with literature, it signals to the consumer that
this fashion house, or this brand, this luxury brand is
doing more than just pumping out new ready to wear
styles every season. So it's something more profound and it
gives deeper meaning to the brand, and that's why that
partnership makes sense. So in an era dominated by ephemeral

(03:35):
digital content, constant distraction, six second videos, short clips, really
things that our audience is in and out of, literature
offers the opposite, something more substantive, more depth, more long lasting.
So associating your brand with a written word like this
really makes your brand have more weight and more meaning,

(03:56):
and it appears more intellectual. So I think fashion embrace
literature is going to be a trend that we're going
to see for a while. And I think these brands
aspire to be more timeless like literature and less fleeting
like the world of social media that we live in.
Thanks for listening to this Soul and Science mini podcast.
We'll see you next time.