No comments about Odile Gilbert: Her Style.

No comments about Fashion Designers at Home.

1 comments about Wearable Art: 2Innovations (A Studio/Penguin book).

1. Maria da Conceicao's well-written and lavishly illustrated book shows her unique wearable art that combines hand and machine piecing, quilting, knitting, and a variety of embellishment techniques. This book lives up to its subtitle "Innovative Designs for Clothing and Fibers". As a fiber artist who also combines many techniques in garments and quilts, this book encouraged me to expand my experimentation and refine my own personal style. I recommend this book to anyone looking for inspiration in the area of wearable art.

4 comments about The Language of Clothes.

1. Well written, well argued history, not text book like at all, but like a long New Yorker article. A pleasure to read. It's not about silly petty fads but great social movements that underlie trends and revolutions. I think more photo illustrations would help.



2. The best pick-up line is to tell a woman how her clothes communicate aspects of her personality. Women love to talk about what the colors, patterns, and styles of their clothes mean. "The Language of Clothes" is all you need to do this -- although I also recommend "Big Hair: A Journey into the Transformation of Self," by Grant McCracken, to discuss what women's hair means. "The Language of Clothes" consists of chapters about how clothes express youth or age, a time or era, certain places, social status, etc. The best chapters are about how clothes communicate gender and sexual messages. This book is also one of the best birthday presents to give to a woman. (I shouldn't be sexist -- the book also discusses men's clothes.) The book has *lots* of clothes, and lots of photos. It's long and carefully researched. It makes you think. Women happily spend hours paging through it.
   --
   Review by Thomas David Kehoe...



3. Novelist Lurie here turns her attention to the history and social interpretation of clothing, linking politics, sexuality and social issues such as class to the evolution of clothing design and style. From Victorian to modern times, The Language of Clothes takes a sweeping look at the history of clothing's evolution and trends, making for an excellent guide.



4. I can't wait to go out and buy this book, which I read in hardcover from the library. It is very well researched and illustrated and discusses clothes and fashions from long ago up till today. And not just fashions and how they change, but what they MEAN. For example, did you know....in olden times, not just elegant clothing, but cloth itself was and admired and expensive commodity. The more cloth making up one's clothing meant that person was wealthy. Paintings of the period featured draperies in the background to indicate a person's wealth, and even today designer clothing uses more cloth and is cut fuller, carrying on the tradition. Anyone interested in not only fashion and clothing but symbols and history should read this book, it is just fascinating and delicious.

5 comments about Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism.

1. I saw this in my list of book to reviews and actually forgot I had it. I gave up on it after a while. It's really, really dry. I'm extremely interested in the topic, but not so much that I'm going to crack a textbook about it.



2. Contrary to other reviews, this book is not a simple narrative. It follows fashion and feminism through history. Granted, it is a new generation of feminism and is bound to be controversial but overall she tries to explain that fashion is a matter of personal preference and conflicts with the idea of the freedom feminism promises. She also explains how fashion constraints were used primarily as class restraints during the early days of feminism (1900's) and that it wasn't a matter (for the most part) of men trying to corner women into a specific role. On top of shattering common misconceptions (such as you can't be a feminist and care how you look) the book is interesting and engaging throughout.
   
   My only complaint is that it doesn't address the problems women do have with body image and the negative implications of fashion, if it did this then it truly would be a well rounded piece of work. Howevever I still give it 5 stars because what it covers it does so excellently.



3. Serious thinkers and armchair experts alike are strongly cautioned against the simplistic narrative Scott promotes in this book. There have been much better, more thoughtful works on fashion produced in the last ten years and I urge you to seek those out. This is not one of them. Doubtless Scott would reject me and my concerns as just another difference-denying feminist who wants all women to look alike. I'd expect nothing less from a writer whose characterization of feminists rarely rises above the level of caricature or straw(wo)men whose contours never resemble the actual feminists themselves. Nuance and subtlety apparently have no place in the author's repertoire. The paucity of documentation, repetitive text, and absence of references to the latest, best work on gender and fashion should warn away all but the most gullible. But if you like Tucker Carlson, shop away....



4. If this book is any indication, Linda Scott apparently got run over by a truck and got up thinking she'd invented the wheel. In Fresh Lipstick, the University of Illinois professor fights and re-fights a battle that was essentially over in the last millennium. With a scant few references to anything written after 1994, Scott seems to have slept though the post-feminist wave that ran over the culture. For a decade now, girls and women (as well as the advertising, film and music industries) have been transgressing the boundaries between fashion, beauty, images of strong women and sexuality, making many of her points repetitive and moot.
   
   The disappointing thing is that, with Scott's obvious intellect, her efforts could have been better spent illuminating the substantive issues facing us like the lack of child care alternatives, the increasing poverty rates among female-headed households, continued domestic violence (no matter what a woman wears or doesn't wear) and an oppressive ideology of motherhood. The book is well suited for bashing easy targets like old-time, `70s feminism in the guise of a liberatory rhetoric, but not for speaking to the contemporary moment.



5. Is beauty a vehicle of oppression enslaving women by its rigid demands or a gateway to status and empowerment? The author presents a compelling, well-researched argument that a love of feminine adornment is not at odds with the broadest goal of the feminist movement - that of individual self-expression.
   
   Linda Scott tracks the development of the feminist movement in its three stages and analyzes the role of female adornment within the context of each wave of change. She brings to light some atypically flamboyant feminists that other books of this genre neglect to mention. Scott also chronicles the upheavals that concurrently went on in the realms of fashion and women's publications. The interconnection of the topics she deals with is complex and often amorphous, but her lucid analysis makes for thought-provoking reading.

No comments about Luxury Design: Luxury New Codes & Jewel Design.

No comments about Fifties Fashion.

1 comments about The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Tartan.

1. Photos and illustrations have great color. Sorry they didn't include some of the alternative tartans for each clan (such as ancient & hunting). Also, it's not as easy to find the clan tartan you're looking for in this one. Several clans are included on each page, tartan photos are about 1.5 inches square, and you have to hunt for the name you want. Tartan photo might not be next to clan name. Lots of good early history of Scotland in the first part of the book and some wonderful photos of the countryside and old castles. I just wish the photos of the tartans had been larger and there had been additional tartans included with each clan.

5 comments about Twentieth-Century Fashion : The Complete Sourcebook.

1. This is a very good reference book to have if you are working in the film/TV industrie or even Theatre or any other fashion area. it gives you a very good overview of every period for men, women, and children (which is very rare to find). it even shows accessories, hats gloves etc.



2. I am very disappointed with this item. I bought it on the strength of Peacock's Shoes: the Complete Sourcebook, and the fact that Thames & Hudson was the publisher (another reputation bites the dust). One problem that both books share is that the title doesn't really convey the scope. I realize that it is hard to define vague areas, but this is more or less Western European and American fashion, it is only about women's clothing, not even the 2003 reprint covers the entire 20th century (it's 1900-1990), and "complete sourcebook" is a bit of an exaggeration. Christian Lacroix claims in the Preface that the fashions of the 1990s are too diverse to be covered. How "fashion" is defined is one of the chief problems with the book.
   
   The basic plan is a good one: fashions for various occasions along with their associated underwear and accessories. The book is broken up into sections covering 5 years (e.g.,1900-1904) Each section has a page each of haute couture, accessories (usually shoes, purses, hats, wraps, and oddly enough, tops such as blouses and sweaters), leisure wear, underwear, evening wear, bridal fashions and two pages of day wear. Coats, jewelry, wigs, gloves, etc., are covered only sporadically. All are illustrated in color by 1100 drawings of a number of garments with dates; only the haute couture are attributed to specific designers. Apparently in order to save pages, the keys to the illustrations, with detailed information about the items, are grouped together in 10 year increments. I find this a bit annoying, but I understand the motive. This is followed by a very useful section with silhouettes for the beginning and ending of each five year period, with description of typical details: e.g. fabrics, trimmings, necklines. This is followed by brief vitas of designers and a bibliography.
   
   There are some oddities in this admirable plan. I was born in 1953, so I remember several decades. Slips start vanishing from the illustrations in the 1960s, even though Peacock still shows plenty of dresses, and are pretty much absent in the 1980s. I suspect more women wore slips later: dresses and skirts were actually more popular than a decade earlier. Contrary to the impression conveyed in the drawings, women did not stop carrying purses in 1970-1974 and 1985-1990.
   
   Worse, Peacock has ignored some of the major trends in 20th century clothing: blue jeans and denim; the decline of hats; and the rise of the woman's business suit. Even given that a book of this size can't really be "complete" this is a major failing.
   
   The industrial revolution made clothing relatively cheap: even the poor could afford new clothing and affect designs. As Christian Lacroix says in the Preface: "... the more the century progresses, the greater the gulf between magazine images of fashion and what is actually being worn on the street." Peacock seems to ignore this. Lacroix continues less accurately: "There is no risk of that with this book ... the every day is ... side by side with fashion's idealized images."
   
   Peacock himself says: "As dictated by the couturier, fashionable dress represents an ideal which few women attain but to which many aspire." He states that this book is his impression of the "ideal". I question defining fashion as strictly determined by couturiers or designers. They are a phenomenon of only the last couple of centuries; fashion existed long before they did. Historically, fashionable clothing was available only to the fairly wealthy and was an indication of their status. Now more people can afford designer clothes, but choose not to wear them. Bell-bottom jeans were as much a fashion of the 1960s-1970s as mini-skirts. Further, jeans were later created by some of the fashion designers that Peacock lists.
   
   There are only hints that hats were pretty much abandoned except for cold weather and, in some cases, religious venues. Someone once described this as the greatest revolution in Western costume! When I was young, most women would never have gone to church or anything other than the most casual event without gloves and a hat. If they didn't have a hat, many put a handkerchief on their head. Now it is very common for women to be bare-headed.
   
   Lastly, the business suit, particularly the knee-length versions that have probably been the most common, are virtually ignored.
   
   The variety of types of garments are a major strength of this book, and some people may want it for that reason. I think it is a very poor representation of how people, even those consciously following some fashion, actually dressed. I suspect that many people with a great interest in the fashion of these years have this information already, and it is questionable as a sole, basic source. Certainly I wouldn't suggest that a novelist, say, rely on this as a representation of clothing in the last half of the century at least.



3. This is a nice book. I want to be a fashion design so my mom thought this would be a nice book,...it wasn't what I was hoping for but it helps if I ever have 'designer's block.' You can look at some of the designs and certain trends and work them into a peice of clothing. And since I've had a bit of trouble drawing my design with people and poses this gives me an idea of what it needs to look like but it doesn't help you draw better. All in all it's a pretty nice book, but not the kind I would have bought but I'm glad my mom did because it's given me lots of ideas.



4. I'm a vintage clothing dealer and use this book constantly. Not as a reference for myself (there are many better books on this subject) but as a guide to show customers a general guide to the "look" of a certain period. The picture outline format is great for just illustrating trends in outfits from the time. I show them how you can capture a look with certain styles or accessories that may or even may not be period. It is a wonderful tool that I have used many, many times. I may not recommend it as a comprehensive guide to vintage, but as a visual tool for a quick education at a glance, you can't beat it.



5. The book is filled with illustrations which are very nice, but I wasn't too impressed. Had I not bought it through Amazon, and was able to flip through it beforehand, I probably would not have bought it. Still, it looks pretty good on a coffee table.

1 comments about Creating and Knitting Your Own Designs.

1. I think that this book is better than the Knitter's Handbook because she has a good selection of pattern stitches. Yes, she is very opinionated about things--but then so is the Zimmerman crowd--in this book she delves a lot more into silhouettes and what is best for your figure type. If you ignored the knitting aspects, this could be used as an additional reference on pattern drafting. The color plates of the garments are pretty good, although all she gives you is yarn, pattern silhouette, type of collar, and stitches used. Not much to go on if you are used to detailed instructions!

   This is not really a book for beginners--her writing style and the editing makes it difficult to understand sometimes (just like the Knitter's Handbook) However, because she shows in detail how to calculate ease allowances and so forth, it will be a valuable future reference, especially for those who make more fitted knitwear.

   The empty graph paper sheets from 1.1 to 2.0 are a big bonus in this book as well, and even though we now have computer programs that will print custom graph paper, it is great for those of us who need to print out a sheet or two on the copy machine for travel. I wish this book were back in print as well!