Customer Reviews

Diana Her Life In Fashion

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Georgina Howell clearly takes the Andrew Morton (read Diana) point of view on the Princess's persecution by the palace and casts her as a kind of saint in a fashion-conscious hagiography. The text was a little too hyperbolic in deifying Diana, yet perhaps that is appropriate, as few have done so much for fashion in our century.

But this book has redeeming qualities that make it worth the time. First, it does cite instances of Diana's fashion faux pas that are gossipy and interesting, for example her dressing-gown dress by David Sassoon and her slip-style dress by John Galiano for Dior. It is also quite meticulous about citing designers and recounting their memories of dressing Di. This humanizes a commercial name and gives the reader a sense of what her patronage meant to these fashion houses.

The best aspects of the book are the appendices listing the auction catalog by piece and the designer listing with short biographies. This is a wealth of specific information that couture-ophiles will love.

My favorite thing about this book is the many close-ups of the materials in many of the dreeses that the Princess Diana wore. Seeing the intricate bead work onont the pink Cahterine Walker dress that she wore on the Indian tour in 1992, gave me such an added appreciation to the beauty of that dress.There is another really nice close up of the beautiful lilac Lot 52. There are many other close-ups of many of her gowns, too many to mention. This book is on my "must have" list.

I was so anxious to read this book and I was shocked by how many typo-s I found here. It was very carelessly edited. For $40 I expected more. A disappointment

A very interesting study in how a person's clothing reflects what is going on in that person's life! The back has short bios of the fashion designers of Diana's clothing/shoes/hats, and a listing of the dresses sold at the auction. For those of us who don't own a copy of the auction catalog, this is almost as good as having one. HOWEVER, the critic before me is right: too many typos for the money!

As I tried to tell you in the one-line summary I think this book is one of the most beautiful coffe table books I have seen this year. I am sure it will be a big seller for Christmas. The pictures are great and the text is intelligently and very informatively written. I will read it from start to finish. The catalogue at the end is also fabulous. I have seen the 14 dresses that are now touring the U.S. so I feel that I have a better appreciation for her clothes than someone who has never seen the kind of dresses she wore. wish I had seen them all at Christie's in New York. What a regret!

This is a lovely book with great photography and will delight Diana's admirers. Diana's transformation from a teenager to a poised woman is well illustrated and Georgina Howell's text is very informative. The closeups of fabrics and details are exquisite and the appendix on the Christies sale is almost as good as having the sale catalog. A number of designers shared their memories and contributed their sketches to accompany the photos.

Amazingly, it was poorly edited with typos; type characters that didn't translate correctly (an e with an umlaut instead of an apostrope on several pages (pp. 210-212) -- probably a computer glitch -- but it should have been caught; missing text because of incorrect margins around a drawing (p. 210); and some incorrect captions. Nothing very important is lost to the reader, but it's sloppy for a book of this quality. I hope it's cleaned up for future printings.

I have always been interested in the Princess of Wales and love this book because it has some pictures of the dresses that were auctioned at Christies and I missed out on that catalog and probably not likely to find one at a decent price either. But the content regarding Diana's sense of fashion and watching the changes over the years is very well documented. It would be great if Christies would reprint the catalog. I am sure alot of people would purchase it with proceeds going directly to Diana's charity. All the proceeds from this book do as well.

Georgina Howell has provided the world with a unique perspective on how Princess Diana revealed her inner thoughts and feelings through her outward style and clothing. This book is especially meaningful to me because it was a gift from my sister Darla who joined me at the Christies Auction in 1997 and travelled with me to Althorp last summer. She wrote a small poem on the gift card and ended by saying "We sat with celebrities of glamour amid, waiting for Christies to open the bid. We bid and we raised until bowing to fate, but our memories are captured on Page 208." And sure enough, there we are: my sister, myself and Bid Paddle #212.

This book didn't add much. Most of the information and pictures have been seen elsewhere.