Question:
Helmut Lang? Till Behrens? Eames? WTF?
Answer:
Okay, first off? Don't sweat it. The modern furniture and fashion references are supposed to go over your head. And it's not like my familiarity with this stuff comes from actual ownership. But if my recaps have inspired you to learn more about 20th century decorative arts, may I suggest the following bibliography:
1000 Chairs, by Charlotte and Peter Fiell, is a great book to have by your toilet (or wherever it is that you do your casual reading) with colorful photos and concise information; The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts, by John Fleming, is a great overall reference and otherwise a nice big thick book that looks impressive when displayed on your bookshelf. Also, www.dwr.com is a mail-order furniture catalog that sells all of the office furniture found at CTU, but if you don't have, say, a spare $2,450 for an Eames lounge chair with matching ottoman, the site is an education unto itself, including lots of legible photos and histories of the items, plus a section that provides biographies about the designers.
For basic fashion information, I cannot express enough the importance of reading The End of Fashion: How Marketing Changed the Clothing Business Forever, by Teri Agins. Ms. Agins is not a fashion editor but a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and therefore her book is highly informative, well researched, and objective and provides a basic overview of twentieth-century fashion that is refreshingly devoid of the advertising-driven industry hyperbole normally found in publications like Vogue, W, or Bazaar. That said, Vogue, W and Bazaar are also excellent resources for pretty photos. The Fashion Book by Phaidon Press is also a handy little A-Z guide to modern fashion, although it's a bit too Anglo-centric and some of the entries are a little spotty in my opinion.