Best Dressed: The Born to Shop Lady's Secrets for Building a Wardrobe [Paperback]

Suzy Gershman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2000

Cultivating a distinctive style that expresses your personality and tells the world how you want to be perceived doesn't have to break the bank. In Best Dressed, Suzy Gershman -- internationally recognized for her retail acumen -- offers a comprehensive guide, from bargain bins to haute couture, to building a wardrobe that not only works for you, but rewards you with a personal style that ensures you always feel comfortable in your clothing. Her insider knowledge of the fashion world helps you identify your fashion goals, maximize your fashion dollars, and look your best, whatever the budget or occasion.

Suzy outlines a foolproof three-step plan for cultivating a successful shopping style. She offers guidance for those still in "The Empty Stage," otherwise known as "Help! I have nothing to wear," showing how to select core pieces that will form the basis of a versatile, age-appropriate wardrobe. Next, you'll master "The One Good Stage" -- in which you invest in one good example in each category of clothes and accessories, broadening your options and looks. By the time you're ready to conquer "The Rounding-Out Stage," finishing your wardrobe with seasonal accents and current trends, you'll have gained the confidence and flair to carry off your own unique style.

Suzy shares her personal philosophies on which items are worth a splurge (and when it's okay to buy "disposable" items); how to predict fashion trends (and when it's too late to buy in); and why the best foundation for any working wardrobe is a comfortable pair of shoes. For fashion novices and clotheshorses alike, Suzy's pointers and tips dissect the complex hierarchy of fashion retail and make creating a flexible and up-to-date wardrobe the painless process it was destined to be.

Suzy Gershman, the world's smartest shopper, lets you in on dozens of insider's tips and secrets to creating a fabulous wardrobe marked by your own personal style. Best Dressed delivers answers to your most frequently asked fashion questions, big or small, including:
Where are the real fashion bargains?
When is it too late to get in on a trend?
What is the single best fashion investment?
Why are the best working wardrobes built from the bottom up?
With Suzy's expert guidance, you'll learn to crack the stores' and manufacturers' pricing secrets, separate hype from style, and make your fashion budget go further than ever before.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Cultivating a distinctive style that expresses your personality and tells the world how you want to be perceived doesn't have to break the bank. In Best Dressed, Suzy Gershman -- internationally recognized for her retail acumen -- offers a comprehensive guide, from bargain bins to haute couture, to building a wardrobe that not only works for you, but rewards you with a personal style that ensures you always feel comfortable in your clothing. Her insider knowledge of the fashion world helps you identify your fashion goals, maximize your fashion dollars, and look your best, whatever the budget or occasion.

Suzy outlines a foolproof three-step plan for cultivating a successful shopping style. She offers guidance for those still in "The Empty Stage," otherwise known as "Help! I have nothing to wear," showing how to select core pieces that will form the basis of a versatile, age-appropriate wardrobe. Next, you'll master "The One Good Stage" -- in which you invest in one good example in each category of clothes and accessories, broadening your options and looks. By the time you're ready to conquer "The Rounding-Out Stage," finishing your wardrobe with seasonal accents and current trends, you'll have gained the confidence and flair to carry off your own unique style.

Suzy shares her personal philosophies on which items are worth a splurge (and when it's okay to buy "disposable" items); how to predict fashion trends (and when it's too late to buy in); and why the best foundation for any working wardrobe is a comfortable pair of shoes. For fashion novices and clotheshorses alike, Suzy's pointers and tips dissect the complex hierarchy of fashion retail and make creating a flexible and up-to-date wardrobe the painless process it was destined to be.

Suzy Gershman, the world's smartest shopper, lets you in on dozens of insider's tips and secrets to creating a fabulous wardrobe marked by your own personal style. Best Dressed delivers answers to your most frequently asked fashion questions, big or small, including:
Where are the real fashion bargains?
When is it too late to get in on a trend?
What is the single best fashion investment?
Why are the best working wardrobes built from the bottom up?
With Suzy's expert guidance, you'll learn to crack the stores' and manufacturers' pricing secrets, separate hype from style, and make your fashion budget go further than ever before.

About the Author

An author, a journalist, and a television personality,  Suzy Gershman worked as a correspondent for Time before turning to the fashion world. In addition to writing Frommer's "Born to Shop" series, Gershman is an editor at Travel Holiday, Porthole, and Luxe magazines and has contributed to publications ranging from McCall's to Neiman Marcus's The Book. Both Harvard Business School and New York's Fashion Institute of Technology have studied her retail guidelines; numerous stores have relied on her as fashion consultant. She currently lives in Connecticut.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Reprint edition (March 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609805819
• ISBN-13: 978-0609805817
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,670,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Author with no sense of style = bad fashion advice, October 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Best Dressed: The Born to Shop Lady's Secrets for Building a Wardrobe (Hardcover)

The author, whose own disastrous clothing choices are shown in the unintentionally hilarious back-cover photographs, is clearly not qualified to dispense fashion advice. Reading this book confirmed my suspicions that this woman has absolutely no sense of style: for example, she thinks that a navy blazer is an indispensible item in EVERYONE's closet (not in mine, certainly; I look for clothes that are appropriate for various occasions but NOT so achingly dull and bland), and she assumes that because SHE doesn't wear high heels, no one else should, either. She also makes the laughable remark that while matching shoes and handbags were the norm in our mothers' and grandmothers' era, they are now considered "declasse" (this is nonsense: coordinated shoes and bags are aesthetically pleasing, and often serve to pull an outfit together). And she believes that if you have only one evening handbag, it shouldn't be black or gold, but some other color (I think most women would argue that a black evening bag is certainly the most versatile choice!).

Check out the sloppy, frumpy outfits this dame is wearing on the back of the book's dust jacket, and see if you don't agree that she is the LAST person you'd want to advise you on building a wardrobe. This book is irritating, useless and a complete WASTE OF MONEY.

(P.S.: More reliable wardrobe advice can be found in the "Chic Simple" book series, particularly the "What Should I Wear?" title. Although some of the examples shown herein are questionable, the overall clothes philosophy is more sound -- and the photographs of shoes are particularly inspiring.)

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Judge this book by its cover., July 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Best Dressed: The Born to Shop Lady's Secrets for Building a Wardrobe (Hardcover)

Like other reviewers of this book, I too noticed that the outfits featured on the back cover were none too appealing. They are presumably very expensive outfits, though, and serve as visual notice of the type of advice contained in the book.

The advice on "building a wardrobe" is almost non-existent (one list of 10 "must-have" items is the sum total). Most of this book is devoted to descriptions of the clothing and retail industries, with long passages describing different types of fabric. Gershman is clearly a fan of haute couture, and much space is spent describing $500 "bargains" (picked up at shops around the world). She does not spend any time discussing color choice, and her idea of accessories is Hermes scarves, Chanel earrings, and fake flowers. She recommends flying yourself to New York twice a year to do your shopping.

If money, practicality, and closet space are not issues for you, you might find this book useful. The rest of us, however, have much better books to choose from. I recommend Linda Dano's "Looking Great," a book so essential to building a good wardrobe that I find myself coming back to it again and again.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Skip This One..., October 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Best Dressed: The Born to Shop Lady's Secrets for Building a Wardrobe (Hardcover)

The author's biggest mistake was to use her own photographs on the back cover. Were these meant to be funny? She's dressed appallingly, awesomely, awfully.

It's tedious reading, with more emphasis on the theoretical, "scientific" study of the "politics" behind retail clothing sales than I, for one, am interested in. I didn't care for her tone, either, or the crude language.

Finally, I found her requirements for building a good wardrobe to be on the expensive side - because of this I don't think most people will be able to make use of her recommendations.