1 comments about Wonderful Wearables: A Celebration of Creative Clothing.

1. This is a wonderful book for both the sewer & the non-sewer alike. The clothing designs are stunning & inspirational, if only to look at. Most are quite colorful, imaginative & have their own unique style. Basic pattern diagrams are included as well as detailed instructions for stitching & piecing. Patterns include ponchos, kimonos, coats, capes, skirts, shirts & accessories such as purses & belts to name a few. The book is packed with instructions for embellishments including applique, embroidery, quilting, & painting. Adding pleats, gathers & ruffles is also covered. Caring for fabrics is included as well. The book is full-color on glossy stock. There are numerous photographs of the clothing, all are gorgeous & true works of art. I fell in love with "Magic Kimono" decorated with a metallic sun & moon design.

1 comments about Heavily Tattooed Men & Women.

1. If you're starting a collection of books on tattooing, you have to get this book. It gives a brief introduction on tattooing, as told by Spider Webb, one of the most controversial tattoo artists of all time. It also contains some great vintage photos of heavily tattooed men and woman. If you like vintage tattoo art this is a great book .

1 comments about Gerd Rothman: Jewellery.

1. if i had to pay full price for this book i would have felt like such a schmuck. since i did not, i give it a perfect score. the book rocks. end of story- see for yourself.

No comments about Psychedelic Chic: Artistic Fashions of the Late 1960s & Early 1970s.

2 comments about Smile ID: Fashion and Style: the Best from 20 Years of ID.

1. On Page 316 of Smile i-D, there's a reprint of a two-page spread from i-D Magazine's December 1992 issue. The left page is empty, save for a black-and-white photo in the center of the page of a female model in a ripped white t-shirt. The page on the right is exactly the same, except for a similarly sized photograph of two vacuum cleaners. The spread is part of a piece on creating your own couture.

   But then again, we're talking about i-D here.
   
   For over two decades, Britain's i-D has had a singular mission of documenting street style, coupled with an utterly innovative artistic vision. Smile i-D is a 600-page retrospective incorporating covers and spreads from the first 200 issues of the magazine. More than this, it's a consummate documentation of the past twenty years of cutting-edge style and culture.

   24 years ago, Terry Jones, then Art Director at British Vogue, decided to abandon his post to document underground, "street" style, then an unheard-of concept. The result was the founding of i-D magazine. Taking a journalistic approach, i-D sought to document the spirit and style of the real world by using the streets of London as its canvas.
   
   At times, people ended up in i-D just because they looked either hip, unique, or bizarre enough. More often than not, it was all three.

   As a result, every nascent trend of the past twenty years fell into the pages of i-D. Punks, mods, ravers, trustafarians, bikers, hip-hoppers, modern primitives, gearheads, drag queens, club kids, dominatrixes, skinheads, glam rockers, dreads, new wavers, and so on were documented equally with an utter disregard - almost a contempt -- of what the latest news from Milan or Paris was.
   
   Taking the concept of innovation to the next level, i-D began to feature anyone who seemed to be on the verge of crossing over to the mainstream, and as you leaf through the pages of this retrospective, the roster of then-unknowns who graced i-D's pages and covers is nearly breathtaking. Boy George in 1980. Galliano and Margiela years before they became household names among the fashion cognoscenti. Sade in 1983, a full year before her debut album was released. Madonna in 1984, just as "Borderline" was beginning to break radio. The list goes on.

   Of course, there is a method to all this madness. Over the course of its 608 pages, it becomes clear that the fever pitch that i-D has sustained into its third decade is the side effect of its goal: the total democratization of style. By highlighting every trend, fad, and style movement in existence it transcends the dictatorial nature of fashion magazines. There is no right or wrong, no "in" or "out". By presenting anything that looks good instead of prescribing a specific look, the concept of fashion is rendered irrelevant, usurped by a manic promotion of individual style. All racial, social and economic boundaries are erased, replaced by the notion of pure individuality.
   
   Accompanying all of this is Jones's unique art direction, which although it has evolved a bit over the course of twenty years, continues to complement the "anything goes" ethos of i-D with a likeminded aesthetic. Minimal layouts are sandwiched in between pages of utter chaos. Text runs in all directions ont any given page. Models fly across the pages, their expressions and bodies frozen in gleeful contortion. Full pages are devoted to minute details, while entire style spreads take up a half-page.

   Absorbing all of this in one or two sittings is impossible; the combination of Jones' hyperkinetic visual style and the nonstop barrage of style, music and pop culture will literally make your head spin. Smile i-D is a coffee table book, to be sure, but its eye-popping visuals and undiluted take on everything that has been hip for the past twenty years ensure that it will be a book you come back to again and again.




2. There's a passage in the introductory text written by former editor Dylan Jones that says: "i-D was the first street fashion magazine, a pick'n'mix grab-bag of punk fashion and DIY style, a pop-cultural sponge soaking up everything with inelegant haste." Very aptly put. And it's all symbolized with an iconic wink (or a gesture suggesting one) on the cover of every issue.

   Throughout the nearly 600 pages of this heavy, photo-packed book (which I happily made the time to survey, one page at a time, front to back), you'll see a maturation from a haphazardly compiled fanzine of punk fashion to a more polished journal of all that which is currently fashionable. No subtle difference, indeed. Black and white photos of random subjects sporting the latest in 80's leather, safety pins and spiked hair give way in the 90's to better-produced shots of more recognizable models and artists. I'm impressed that the raw, "immediate" flavor of the photography and design just gets better throughout i-D's first twenty years.

   There's not enough space to detail all the things I liked about this book, but I found especially interesting the early photos of some models and pop icons before they became widely known. I thought the numerous quotes by artists/actors/musicians added a good comical complement to the pictures. Also, the refinement (my opinion) of grahic design techinque is evident with the aging of i-D: it's not unlike looking at a scrapbook of an acne-ridden adolescent who grows into a hip and handsome young adult. Although i-D is somewhat new to me, it's now one of my favorite style publications. I wish I hadn't missed the first couple hundred issues, but I'm glad I got this book.

No comments about Muscatine's Pearl Button Industry (IA) (Images of America).

1 comments about Conversational Prints: Decorative Fabrics of the 1950s (Schiffer Design Book).

1. I really like the book a lot . I am currently a textil design student. The book helps a lot to look
   at the styles of the 50th.
   I also purchased . " Fabulous Fabrics of the 50s and Forties Fabrics. I can recomend all three books.

5 comments about The Mane Thing: Foreword by Cindy Crawford.

1. This book covers all the basic information on everything about hair: color, texture, brushes, tools, styling, cleansing and conditioning. One of my favorite parts is when the author addresses hair texture and styling, so you can get control over your hair no matter how curly or straight.
   
   The only reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 is because a few of the styles are outdated, but overall valuable to an amateur at hair.



2. This is a great book. It is like an owners manual for your hair. It tells you everything about; brushes, combs, tools, hairtype, and the how to for all the styles and cuts. I didn't see anything offending, all I saw was a well written book.



3. You can't see anything but the heads and sometimes bare shoulders of the girls. There was one small picture of a playboy cover, but that girl was completed covered too. I don't see how that's offensive at all. About the hairstyles, they were mostly practical and sofisticated, just what I was looking for! I have Charles Worthington's complete book of hairstyling and found that most of those hairstyles were wild and no normal person would ever wear their hair that way. That is not the case of this book. I highly recommend it. I would only wish for even more pictures of styles!



4. I am appalled at the grammar in some of our population. What kind of school did "Marsha from Arizona" attend? Did she graduate? Woman, the word is "offended," not "affended." The word is "whipped,' not "whiped." What a sad commnentary on our school system.



5. I was quite affended when I got this book. I whiped it out and started looking at it and was upset to see that most of the models are not wearing clothes. There was a few pages with magazine covers on them, one of which was a playboy magazine cover. If any of these things affend you also I would advise you NOT to get the book. The hairstyles weren't anything I was interested in either. I didn't read very much of the text but it didn't appear to have many directions on how the styles were made.

1 comments about Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400-1500 (The History of dress series).

1. I recently found a copy of this book. It is drastically out of print and took almost a year to track down. But it was well worth the large sum it cost and the time it took to find.

   It is a large book, some 250 pages, lavishly illustrated in b/w and color. A complete art bibliography is included, but some of the paintings' attributions and titles have changed in the past 25 years, so be aware. Text is scholarly and witty, told by someone whose expertise in the subject is clearly profound. A glossary is included of garment terms from the period -- a lifesaver for me! Text includes all aspects of garment, from underwear to shoes to belts to hats to jewelry to clothes, and information on fabric types and weaving and dyeing techniques. I've already read it several times, and every time, I get something new from it. I should also add that many of these portraits do not appear to exist online, so you'll see plenty of things you haven't seen before.

   It wasn't quite what I expected, however. I thought it'd tell me how exactly to make sleeves, hose, etc., and it didn't. But what it did give me was an excellent and in-depth study of clothes in Renaissance Italy, and enough information that I feel I am prepared to use all that velvet I've been hoarding finally without making an idiot of myself. If you are into costuming, and this is your period, definitely get it! Be prepared to spend some cash money, though.

1 comments about Denim and Chambray With Style: Sewing Easy Accents for "Comfort" Clothes.

1. Mary never fails to provide us with wonderful projects and terrific ideas. As always, the instructions are clearly written.

   Those who have purchased her previous books will not be disapointed; new readers are in for a treat.

   On a scale of 1 - 10, this book is a 15!