No comments about Visionaire 55: Surprise.

No comments about The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England.

2 comments about Contemporary Machine-embroidered Fashions: Transform Everday Garments into Designer Originals.

1. I love to embroider. I look around for blanks all the time, and embroider them to death. So I have drooled over this book for a while. I finally bought it, and was hugely disappointed. The first few pages are a refresher course on embroidery. It talks about stabilizer, threads, even machines. It shows how to hoop, and basically is a short course in how to get set to embroider. Then you get to the projects. Each project shows you a blank (an piece of clothing that has no embroidery or designs on it already), and it shows you how to dress it up. There is probably something for everyone in the book. There is a sweater, a top, jeans, a few dresses, and much more. Some of the ideas are very unique and original. However, what I really wanted the book for was the designs. What a mistake! The designs are pretty boring, absolutely nothing special. I am very surprised, as Eileen Roche has such beautiful designs through Amazing Designs. Anyway, it was my error to get the book without seeing all the designs first.
   
   One thing that was really excellent about the book is how the placement of the designs was explained. If you have a hard time knowing where to put designs, this is a good book for that. Just don't think you are getting a bunch of gorgeous designs.



2. Eileen Roche is the founding editor of 'Designs in Machine Embroidery' and so brings a special expertise to "Contemporary Machine-Embroidered Fashions: Transform Everyday Garments Into Designer Originals". Enhanced with a profusion of colorful illustrations, as well as the inclusion of a bonus CD offering 30 original designs, "Contemporary Machine-Embroidered Fashions" focuses upon fashion embroidery using the sewing machine. Needlecraft enthusiasts are provided with twenty projects with their step-by-step instructions and coordinating outfit ideas; techniques and tips for selecting and using blanks, notions, designs, templates, stabilizers, hoops and machines; as well as invaluable information on embroidering tops and bottoms, necklines, collars, cuffs, pockets, and trim. A thoroughly 'user friendly' manual of projects and concepts, "Contemporary Machine-Embroidered Fashions" will prove a welcome and even inspiring addition to needlecraft reference collections.

1 comments about Shoes, Shoes, Shoes (Mulberry Books).

1. I just got a copy of this book, and I was totally impressed by it. The pictures in the book are amazing, of the highest quality, and they are taken with an excellent eye. The book contains snapshots from shoes around the world, showing the people that wear them and what they do when they wear them. Many cultures and peoples are represented here, and it made me want to go out and see these places! Definitely a must have book for every child. (and every adult with a child's sense of wonder)

3 comments about Print, Pattern & Colour.

1. Ruth's enthusiasism for color and textiles comes through on every page. Her specific advice and instructions make one get into the workroom right away and start experimenting.



2. Print, Pattern & Colour
   
   I have quite a few books on surface design, dyeing and so on, but found this book well worth buying, unlike the previous reviewer. After all, how many NEW techniques are there? The photos are sumptuous and eyecatching, techniques are well-summarised, and there were ideas in there that I haven't tried before. A good buy as far as I'm concerned.



3. Disappointing - no real eye candy or new approaches. Processes have been around for a while and their application, as demonstrated by the images in the book, are pretty ordinary. I liked previous books by this author but think this one is a waste of my funds.

5 comments about Thalia: !Belleza!: Lessons in Lipgloss and Happiness.

1. Es un libro excelente para toda mujer que quiera siempre lucir regia... tiene muchos tips interesantes, y muchos ejemplos de maquillajes y peinados, habla de como cuidar tu piel, tu cabello, de todo!.... se los recomiendo



2. este libro esta increible, Thalia te describe todas sus tecnicas y secretos de belleza en todos los sentidos, yo personalmente amo este libro



3. Is excellent to all the girls that wants to be beauty all the times. Is just for you... excellent work Thalía!



4. I love this book. I always wanted to wear make up but didn't want to look like a clown, NOW I know. My hair is curly so it was hard for me to keep it looking good and not hard with the hair gel, with this book I learn to fall in love with my own hair. The tips that Thalia give are GREAT !!!!
   
   Maria Mayer



5. I collect beauty books as a hobby. So many beauty books circulate the same old tired advice. Thalia has some fresh ideas and information to share. I was pleasantly surprised and delighted. Very well done.

5 comments about The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style: A Maintenance Bible for Fashion, Beauty, and More . . ..

1. I loved the book. I really used the information provided to update my look. She has a classic elegant style, which was what I was after. It really inspired me and I have implemented many of her suggestions. I give it two thumbs up.



2. I see that a lot of reviewers had problems with this book because the author is so brutally blunt. She's also correct. Once you are over 40 NOBODY wants to see your jelly roll stomach or your crepey flesh spilling from your white teeny tiny shorts.None of us wants to be that silly woman who prances around the PTA meeting dressed exactly like her young daughter;do we? If you follow the advice of this book that will never happen to you.
   
   What the author is trying to get across is style doesn't die just becuase you're over 25. In fact, you can look a lot classier and even beautiful at 40 than you did at 20 IF you know the tricks of dressing to your advantage.



3. Unlike some of the more negative reviews for this book, I absolutely loved it and have given copies to several friends and family members. The frank, conversational style of Ms. Schwab's book was a delight to read and was filled with excellent photo examples of her suggested was to avoid common fashion pitfalls and how to recover from them with aplomb.
   
   Rather than approaching the author's comments as a means to feel badly about oneself, I took them to be guidelines about rethinking my observation skills --- what it means to be fashionable and attractive well past the "shelf life" presented by Madison Avenue's standards.
   
   The goal is not to imitate the reckless youth we've left behind, but rather to emulate a more classic, and yes, conservative sense of style. That is not to say that by making yourself more age-appropriate you are wholly restricted in your artistic leanings or eclectic fancies. However, this book illustrates well the wisdom of avoiding the cheap-and-trendy selections in favor of adopting a more chic-and-tailored lifestyle. By opting for less flamboyant wardrobe choices and maquillage, we learn to show a more educated, refined sensibility. We can present a more polished and glamourous exterior, and one which we've earned by outgrowing our need for flashy-trashy, attention-getting frippery.
   
   So yes, this book suggests letting go of our bygone eras worth of frills. And it does recommend that we flaunt what we consider our assets while creatively concealing our detriments. Rest assured the stylists to the stars also offer similiar advice to their charges, so what's wrong with taking a little insiders advice? Maybe it is high time we take a good look in a full lenght mirror from all angles and have that internal heart-to-heart with ourselves, admitting that while maybe our knees aren't as cute as they once were or our waddling arms as attractive in short sleeves, but damn it, we still have shapely calves and a nice collarbone that deserves more focus.
   
   Huzzah to Ms. Schwab for this wonderful book! She gives me much food for thought about how to remain alluring and charming in my later decades without resorting to try to pull off looking like Paris Hilton in drag.



4. This is an entertaining, fun read by an author who tells it like it is, even if the truth is sometimes hard to hear. She tells us that women of a certain age shouldn't wear shorts, sleeveless tees or anything our teenage daughters might wear and you know what? She's right. She has some excellent tips (color near the face in the form of a scarf is a great way to draw the eyes to your best asset, don't wear big prints unless you really want people to look at that area), and the photos of people on the street, as well as the author herself, can only make you laugh as you recall the fashion foibles of our collective clothing history.



5. If you want a book that has straightforward advice and well-researched products and tips - this is the book for you. I have read many similar books but this is without a doubt the very best out there!
   
   I love the candor - I have used many of the tips myself.
   The author is genuine and a very nice person too!
   Thanks Christine for writing this book for all of the `Grown Up Girls' out here!!!
   JB

5 comments about Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series).

1. This is a beautiful book illustrating the different ways cultures reform the body and for what reasons. It is just like actually visiting an exhibit at a major museum. But this you get to take home and enjoy over and over. The photos are plentiful, full color, large and professional. The text is not overly scholarly, but informative and intelligent. It does leave me wanting to delve deeper into the subject intellectually.



2. To read this book reveals not only plenty of interesting and quite often surprising information on fashions past and current but its text and pictures are highly complementary. In addition a lot of the provided information gives insight into social structures of the centuries referred to - and once more it is proven that fashion is one of the quickest instruments to testify social and historical changes to the world.



3. Extreme Beauty is a wonderful book that celebrates the Metropolitan's equally brilliant exhibit about fashion and it's different preoccupations with the body. The exhibit was magnificent, and the book truly honors the tone and feeling of it, while being extremely informative in it's own right. The book is divided into different chapters such as neck and shoulders, waist, chest, etc. Each chapter features photos of the garments displayed in the original exhibit, as well as additional historical drawings and photographs of the various fashions and cultural trends that have celebrated the parts of the body. And, as promised in the title, the book explores the cultural foundations of bodily transformation and mutilation(?) through everything from extreme corsetry, [..] footwear and peircing to the tribal women who use metal rings to actually elongate their vertebrae. Harold Koda's insightful and meticulously researched commentary is just the icing on the cake. This is a must for any fashion library, but also of great interest to non-fashionistas.



4. Sentient humans with brains as well as bodies have always been fascinated by the way we adorn ourselves and why. Once we can get past the cultural anthropology of fashion, and the fads that make it a billion-dollar world industry, we can dig down to discover the roots of historical and current adorned beauty, and EXTREME BEAUTY does this . . . beautifully.
   It is pleasing--in an era in which physical beauty and adornment typified by fashion have been roundly rejected by most of the jeans-wearing public--to find a book that lets beauty out and helps us exercise our sense of mystery and wonder, based in no small part on human sexuality and attraction. Harold Koda (curator of the Costume Institute at New York's Met) has mounted a show and created a book with marvelous insights and passion, and the illustrations are wondrous--consider, as a case in point, Thiery Mugler's 'Chimere,' with its savage eroticism.
   One could quibble with Koda's arbitrary division of the body into 'neck and shoulders,' 'chest,' 'waist,' 'hips' and 'feet,'
   and his exclusion of the fascinating face/head/hair perplex, and the hands, with their magical touch and allure. But this book and its illustrations will become a benchmark by which human adornment is judged, and is a keeper of power and importance.



5. Harold Koda's Extreme Beauty surveys concepts of fashion and beauty. Koda considers the evolving, changing strategies of beauty around the world, focussing on different body parts and how they are accented and displayed through varying uses of clothing and cultural perception. Black and white and color photos of unusual fashion choices and styles make for some eye-opening insights.

3 comments about Elegantly Frugal Costumes: The Poor Man's Do-It-Yourself Costume Maker's Guide.

1. I received this book as a gift, and I am grateful for it. It does have some good ideas, some that I hadn't thought about, some different ways of doing things. It helps to think in different ways, do some brain-exercising.



2. What I like about this book is that it foregoes any esoterica and costuming theory in favor of good old fashioned practicality. The reader doesn't have to sift through the excruciating snobby details, but instead is given the real lowdown as if visiting with a best friend who happens to be a costume mistress.

   This book focuses mainly on costuming for low-budget productions (such as community theatre or a school play), providing useful information and advice on making good-looking costumes from already existing garments and/or thrift store offerings. Information abounds about time period, costume cuts & styles, ways to splurge or skimp on your costumes and still have them look fabulous, as well as details that an inexperienced costumer might overlook (such as using velcro instead of buttons for ease in costume changes).

   I would highly recommend this to anyone who is involved in costuming for a production, or anyone who simply loves costumes and loves to recycle old clothes into great new ones. I love this book and have read through it several times just for inspiration.




3. An excellent book of ideas and help for someone wanting to learn to costume for community theatre. It contains excellent examples of her own work that is easy to follow. It does not overload your brain with useless information. A good starting out book, that aids a person in organizing the information , and research problems needed to suceeded in this field. Also a good read for veterans of the design buisness to give fresh ideas and back up what they have done . After 35 years finally I have found someone who appreciates the use of thrift stores , goodwill and lace curtains for stage costumes. Thank you Shirley for putting it into words and pictures.

2 comments about Gucci by Gucci.

1. if you're looking for a book with a lot of history on Gucci, you will be disappointed. This is a nice coffee table book but not a great source for research.



2. I was absolutely amazed at the size of this book. It's huge! The pictures are wonderful. However, I wish that the personalities were named on the page of the photo instead of in a photo icon sized index in the rear of the book. Otherwise, a quite amazing journal on the history of Gucci.