Bookworm chic is hot right now – even if you don’t actually read | Canada Voices

It’s become fashionable to be well-read – or at least to appear well-read.

Take Dior’s Book Cover Collection, which recently hit stores (retail price: $3,700-$5,100). The French luxury brand’s totes feature nostalgic classics like Bonjour Tristesse and the founder’s own beribboned memoir, Dior by Dior, along with titles ranging from gothic fiction and French poetry to autobiography and true crime.

The Dracula tote invokes the distinctive font and yellow and red cloth of its 1897 first edition, while the pastille-pink Les Liaisons Dangereuses bag mimics the original graphic design treatment. All have the addition, naturally, of Dior’s branding. It’s a canny move, calculated to highlight the return of the brand’s original typography.

The collection debuted soon after designer Jonathan Anderson’s arrival as artistic director last year, but Dior’s literary bent has precedent. In her Spring 2017 debut for the house, Maria Grazia Chiuri created slogan T-shirts featuring the title of Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book-length essay, We Should All Be Feminists, calling it a manifesto for her own work. In 2018, Chiuri released the first iteration of the label’s book tote, which Anderson built on with his capsule of embroidered literary riffs.

The 41-year-old Irish designer’s mother was a high school English teacher, but besides the titles themselves, how the source material factored into the genesis of Dior’s ready-to-wear collection of jeans and tailored jackets isn’t so legible.

According to BookNet Canada’s most recent Leisure & Reading survey, just under half of all Canadians read between one and five books in 2024 (in the U.S., YouGov’s latest survey reveals that 40 per cent of American adults didn’t read a single book in 2025).

Fewer still can afford to carry Dior’s luxury totes, but those who do will be giving main character energy thanks to the juggernaut #BookTok and #Bookstagram trends. (The brand even enlisted popular book influencer @TrayReadThat in its promotional campaign.)

On one hand, it’s heartening to see books having a moment when AI-generated slop is infiltrating human creativity, and literature faces threats from rising censorship. But though Ulysses was hotly contested in its day, none of Dior’s chosen titles are under threat today.

The current trend of accessorizing with literary cred arguably began about 15 years ago, when Olympia Le-Tan created luxury hand-embroidered clutches reflecting well-known novels. Soon after, Brooklyn brand Out of Print launched with book-themed merch, emblazoning instantly recognizable covers – The Color Purple, A Clockwork Orange (the iconic 1972 David Pelham design), Pride and Prejudice (festooned with peacock feathers from the original 19th-century edition) and Schocken Library’s mid-century treatment of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis – onto canvas bags and T-shirts. It’s no coincidence that books became fashionable lifestyle props around the same time that Instagram appeared, in 2010.

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Writers, books and style have long been frequent companions, dating from white-suited Tom Wolfe and White Album-era Joan Didion as enduring style icons (the latter was featured in a 2015 Céline campaign). To promote the publication of Sally Rooney’s 2021 novel Beautiful World, Where Are You, publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux released bucket hats and tote bags that became coveted fashion status symbols.

In addition to variations on classic Penguin Book covers by contemporary artists Harland Miller and Alanna Cavanagh, there are also countless literary clutches to proclaim one’s taste. One can also dab after a canapé with Inner Child’s cocktail napkins referencing Anne of Green Gables and Wuthering Heights (“Pair with a strong drink and an even stronger female lead”; $82 for 4); or scrub dishes with a sponge set by Fred (“Grime and Punishment” and “The Old Pan and the Sea” are among the tongue-in-cheek offerings).

Today, it’s never been trendier to wear your shelf on your sleeve, so to speak – or to carry your groceries with it. The $25 canvas tote featuring the façade of beloved British indie bookseller Daunt Books is another cultural status symbol. First worn by Belgian model Anouck Lepère, its fans include Keira Knightley, Benedict Cumberbatch, Apple Martin and Kristen Stewart.

Dior is but the most high-end iteration of chasing literary clout. These days, politicians like Barack Obama share their year-end reading lists, while celebrities like Dua Lipa, Kaia Gerber and Emma Roberts preside over idiosyncratic book clubs. Sex and the City’s Sarah Jessica Parker even has her own literary imprint (and served on the 2025 Booker Prize jury), recently sharing her 2026 recommendations with a stack of publisher galleys.

Other luxury fashion brands have also been leaning into the cultural cachet of intellectualism. Aesop and Miu Miu have staged literary celebrations, giving books away for free. Chanel has a continuing culture series, Les Rendez-vous littéraires rue Cambon, which uses books as a jumping-off point for discussion. The label also offers seasonal reading lists curated by famous friends of the house such as Charlotte Casiraghi.

Chanel’s former creative director Karl Lagerfeld was famously surrounded by stacks of books, but Italian luxury fashion brand Brunello Cucinelli’s recent print ads go one better. They feature the eponymous founder surrounded by mountains of books, as though he’s parting a sea of spines (the image is also the poster for The Gracious Visionary, Oscar-winning filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore’s new documentary about the designer).

The brand’s holiday window at Harrods was also propped with stacks of books, further emphasizing that the $3,000 cashmere sweater enterprise is built – somehow – on a humanitarian ethos of classical philosophy. Perhaps never in the history of fashion has a company more wanted to make sure we know they’re intellectual.