Fashion has long borrowed from art, music and cinema, but now it seems to be literature's turn in the spotlight.
The latest example comes from the Italian gentlemen's maison Berluti, which has turned to Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince for a limited-edition collection of leather goods. Published in 1943, the deceptively simple tale of a young prince travelling between planets has endured because its themes of love, loss, friendship and the importance of imagination span generations.
For Berluti, the story is translated into the house’s own visual language. Across a collection of shoes, bags and small leather goods set to arrive in stores later this year excerpts from the book and Saint-Exupery’s own illustrations appear through patination, leather marquetry and even the unexpected medium of tattooing. Rather than reproducing the story literally, Berluti has woven references discreetly into the leather itself.
The Trois Nuit bag, for instance, evokes the book’s famous mountain scene without depicting the protagonist himself, while Berluti’s signature patination gives the imagery an almost weathered quality, a subtle reference for those who already know the story.
Berluti has also worked with publisher Gallimard on a Bibliotheque de la Pleiade edition dedicated to Saint-Exupery, creating a presentation case and book covers in its hand-patinated Venezia leather.
Berluti is hardly alone in recognising the possibilities of the written word and its enduring hold on our imagination. Fashion’s relationship with literature has a long history, but in recent years it has become increasingly visible.
German fountain pen maker Montblanc has also drawn on The Little Prince, introducing its first Meisterstuck Le Petit Prince collection in 2018, with fountain pens, notebooks and planners decorated with Saint-Exupery’s imagery.
Swiss watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen, meanwhile, marked the book’s 70th anniversary in 2013 with a series of timepieces featuring the Little Prince on his asteroid, building on the watchmaker’s long-standing relationship with the Saint-Exupery family and foundation. Boss celebrated the story's 80th anniversary with a special collection in China in 2023.
However, it is not just The Little Prince that offers inspiration. Handbag label Olympia Le-Tan has looked to the literary universe since 2009, transforming famous tomes into hand-embroidered minaudieres, with Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and The Art of War by Sun Tzu just some of the classics reimagined as bags of desire.
Dior has taken a similar approach with its roomy Book Tote, introduced in 2018 under then-creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri and reworked by her successor Jonathan Anderson. Starting in June 2025, Anderson has decorated the bag with first-edition covers of titles such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, James Joyce's Ulysses, Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.
Coach, too, has made the book portable. The spring/summer 2026 collection includes miniature book charms created in collaboration with Penguin Random House. Made as tiny, readable bag charms, among them were Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Saint Laurent has made publishing part of its identity under creative director Anthony Vaccarello. Through Saint Laurent Editions, it produces art and photography books, while its Saint Laurent Babylone space in Paris brings together rare books and independent magazines under the same cultural roof.
Miu Miu launched its own literary club in 2024, creating a forum for writers and thinkers to complement its fashion activities, while Chanel launched its Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon in 2021 with Charlotte Casiraghi to cement literature around women, culture and ideas.
DKNY’s autumn/winter 2024 campaign with Kaia Gerber, meanwhile, brought literary quotes on to the streets of New York, splashed across its billboards.
The appeal is not confined to fashion houses, either. Aesop, the Australian skincare brand, has been turning select stores into temporary reading rooms and libraries for years, dedicating its shelves and spaces to women’s literature.
New categories of book fans have emerged over the years, too. Inspired by her own childhood spent among books, singer and fashion darling Dua Lipa started her Service95 Book Club in June 2023, turning her own love of reading into a global community, while Florence & The Machine singer Florence Welch began her Between Two Books reading club in 2012.
Then there is BookTok, the sprawling literary community on TikTok that has helped turn reading into a social activity. What began as readers sharing recommendations morphed into a global force during Covid-19 and now has the power to make major booksellers place “as seen on BookTok” or “TikTok made me read it” banners in store windows.
There is something revealing about fashion’s renewed interest in literature. The industry has always traded in cultural capital, but books offer something that an image alone cannot. In an increasingly digital world, the physical book has also acquired a new kind of luxury. Paper, typography, illustration and craftsmanship are becoming objects of fascination in their own right, as bookstores are evolving into social spaces and reading clubs are becoming communities.
According to the Association of American Publishers, while sales of adult books remained flat in the first quarter of 2026, sales of children's books and young adult literature rose a tentative 2.6 per cent. While hardly seismic, it offers some hope that younger audiences, often dismissed as permanently glued to screens, are beginning to turn to the tactile pleasure of a physical book.
For luxury brands, the attraction is obvious. A book implies culture, curiosity and discernment, and is capable of sparking conversations and assumptions about the person carrying it.
Perhaps that is why The Little Prince feels like such a natural choice for Berluti. Saint-Exupery’s story, after all, asks us to look beyond appearances and recognise that what matters most may not be immediately visible. For a brand built on transforming a surface through craft, it is difficult to imagine a more fitting literary companion.
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