Justine Picardie is the author of seven books, including the bestselling ‘Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life’ and ‘Miss Dior: A Wartime Story of Courage and Couture’. Her latest book, ‘Fashioning the Crown: A Story of Power, Conflict and Couture’, is published on 26 February 2026 by Faber. Previously editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, she is now a contributing editor to the magazine.
Whenever I’m travelling, I always choose books as companions to the places I’m visiting, and given my frequent trips to Scotland, both for work and for pleasure (this year, as always), these are my three choices:
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
A wonderfully strange and utterly singular masterpiece, set in a gothic castle in the Scottish Highlands, telling the story of one of the daughters of the house, a fiercely unorthodox heroine who subverts both her upbringing, and the conventions of the coming-of-age novel.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
I first read this unforgettable classic when I was still at school, but it seems a good time to return to it again next time I’m in Edinburgh, the city where the charismatic Miss Brodie teaches ‘her’ girls in the 1930s. As always with Spark, the apparently effortless elegance of her writing is mingled with whip-sharp wit and a sinister undertone.
Embroidering Her Truth: Mary Queen of Scots and the Language of Power by Clare Hunter
A brilliant cultural biography that explores how the fabled Queen used needlework to express political and personal messages, thereby crafting her own narrative, despite her years of imprisonment and tragic fate.
