Customer Reviews

Ready To Wear: An Expert's Guide to Choosing and Using Your Wardrobe

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a 3.5 star book. 5-stars if you live/work in an area where people pay more attention to your clothes than how well you do your job and/or you go to a lot of formal functions. 1-2 stars if you are a work/stay-at-home parent looking to upgrade your wardrobe a bit.

Good points: Clear descriptions of types of dress for various situations, including business casual (always a tricky one). Clear steps on how to "shop in your closet" and reorganize it. Some good forms in the back to help you keep track of what you have and what you need to shop for. Pictures of some clothing styles, types of shoes, etc., all line drawings, there are no color photos in the book anywhere. Good plan for what to do when you're at the store, and what to look for in good dressing rooms. Lots of suggestions for accessories, as well as what to keep in your office for the occasional clothing emergency.

Bad points: Not enough on seasonal dressing for your climate--she assumes that everyone has (or should have) 4 full seasons' worth of clothes. Ahem(!) In for example, Southern California, you pretty much have dry season and wet season. Northern California, and the Pacific Northwest, you need some clothing for cold weather, but hardly a "season's" worth, and so on. And trenchcoats are great for cities with sidewalks, or where you drive up in a car and get dropped of at the curb and never touch dirt or grass. For people in climates where it only occasionally gets cold, one or two coats and perhaps a nice wrap is plenty.

Occasional silly rules like "no straw hats after Labor Day" which perhaps apply to New York and points north (the author lives in Boston), where it gets cold in the autumn, but not in Southern California, or other states where summer-type weather extends well into November. She also doesn't like athletic shoes with business wear while commuting. It apparently doesn't occur to her that perhaps people wear them for comfort (because they have to stand for an hour or longer on the train or bus) and safety (never know when you might have to run from a mugger). Very few formal/work shoes are truly comfortable and safe to run in (or even walk fast). When they make such things, people will buy them, until then, it is athletic shoes.

Relies too much on black as the basis of a wardrobe. Black is great on many people, but by no means everyone. She says people "don't remember" black. If you wear any color to excess, people will remember it.

I didn't see her advice so much as "dated"; instead, it seemed very "back east" and corporate-oriented, and it helped if you have tons of money to spend.

She insists that everyone needs at least one suit. If you do not work in any outside job, "business casual" will carry you through everything except a true formal occasion. You're much better off spending money on quality separates. She is very into "power dressing" and it gets annoying after a while if you're the type of person who pays attention to the person, not the clothing.

Bottom line, a good book if you live back east, or in your very large cities where at least some people pay attention to fashion. For the rest of us, some good sound info, but you have to wade through some annoying attitudes to get to it. And there are mistakes in the index. A good companion book would be Does This Make Me Look Fat? by Leah Feldon, which has more and better line drawings and better ideas for what to look for to make the most of your figure, whatever size it is.

I love this book..It has great information on organizing your closet, updating and refining your wardrobe, and making your closet filled with "ready to wear" outfits and separates.

It was written by a professional wardrobe consultant and stylist. The great thing is that her tips can be tailored to each individual..be she a professional working women, stay at home mom or combination of the two.

Her chapters on closet organization were the best..its easy to see how your closet can get crammed and filled with seldom used things..like your prom dresses, wedding dress, off season coats etc. She is correct when she says that you use only 20% of your wardrobe..and motivates you to get rid of the 80% that is cluttering your closet. It made me want to revamp my whole closet!!

Less helpful, were the chapters dealing with styling for your figure type. But that is hard to do in written form for most women. We need concrete examples...its better to just go to the store and try on bunches of stuff and see what works for your body shape.

Also included in the book were worksheets and lists to help you write down your style and things you need. I didn't find these very useful but i certainly appreciate the idea. All in all, I found this book to be very helpful..i have already culled out many clothes in my wardrobe that don't work for me and I appreciate having extra space in my closet. Plus, I look forward to shopping trips where i can be more selective of what i choose. Great book!!

I'm glad I got this book from the library. I've already put some of the advice to work, but I wouldn't want to have paid for the book. While I think the organizing parts are great (it seems so obvious to not hang the stuff you wear only once a year front and center in your everyday closet, but we do tend to get away from the obvious), the parts on fashion need a lot of work. I am not a charity-event attending 60-year-old wealthy Bostonian. I can't tell you how many times in this book the author recommends pearls. I don't want to wear pearls, thank you very much. Her "dressing to flatter your figure" sections are ridiculous, because, as many others have pointed out, there are NO illustrations to demonstrate her points. I was left scratching my head. She's also really big, big on all things turtleneck or turtleneck-like. Again, no thank you. Lastly, a BIG sticking point I have is that the index is totally useless because, at least in the edition I borrowed, ALL THE PAGE NUMBERS IN THE INDEX ARE WRONG!! How did this slip past the editors? Even when the author refers to other parts of the text, the page numbers are wrong! It's really annoying. If I owned the book and wanted to use it as a reference once in a while, I'd be on my own to find the pages I want.

I loved it! This book is a an easy read, and organized approach to dressing well. I've been a stay at home Mom for many years. Resently, I accepted a job as a Sales Associate for a major department store. Needless to say, my wardrobe needed major updating. I didn't know where to go for help. An Expert's Guide to Choosing and Using Your Wardrobe, gave me the tools I needed to improve my own wardrobe and the confidence to help my clients with their selections. This book is an excellent reference which I will continue to use.

I found this book to be extremely refreshing. Not only is it full of practical information, it also teaches the reader how to appy this information to their own life. I felt as it this book was talking directly to me. As I went through the steps outlined in the book, I felt as if the author were with me. The book anticipated my questions and offered guidance when faced with difficult wardrobe management decisions.

I have recommended this book to numerous friends and we all found it to be a pleasant surprise. After years and years of fashion books focused on a small population, this book talks to everyone. It allows the fashion weary to start slow and build a complete, versatile wardrobe.

I especially like that so much of the book begins and stays at home. As you know, so many of us would like to start over, but this is not practical. By shopping in our own closets, my friends and I were able to become reaquainted with pieces that have not lost their style or value. These pieces have taken on a second life.

Thank you for a wonderful book.

I loved this book - I found it via an Amazon search, because the author, Mary Lou Andre, was going to be speaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, and I wanted to read the book prior to hearing her live.

I was not disappointed - I'm a fellow Image Consultant, and I really enjoyed the principles on simplifying your wardrobe. I am an avid shopper, and I could easily have an overcrowded (yet fashionable) closet. Mary Lou's easy manner (both in person and in her book) helped me to weed out some of the dozens of black items I own (do I really need 10 black skirts?), and to take a little risk with adding color and accessories to diversify without crowding.

I really enjoyed this book, and will definately recommend it to my private and corporate clients. Not too technical, enough detail to keep you involved, and how-to's that you really can achieve on a realistic budget.

Highly recommended - I'm officially a fan!

This is a great book because it is so practical. The author is really specific and covers just about every aspect of a wardrobe, from orgaization to shopping to the best clothes for every woman. It can be a bit old-fashioned at times, but overall it is one of my favorites. I especially like the author telling us about what is in her closet, it adds interest and helps the reader to visualize the same concepts in her own.

I was a little disappointed. Seems to be geared toward women with a lot more clothes than I even want to own. For example, she mentions she has 14 different pairs of black pants. I also didn't think she handled knowing what looked good on you very well. For example, when she talked about necklines, she referred to about 6 styles and described them, but none were anything I basically intend to wear (all a variation of turtleneck). I know what looked good on me when I was 20, but as I get older (but not old), I need a little help to strike a balance between downright foolish and frumpy. She did have some good ideas about getting organized to make what you have more accessible and useful and it is an interesting book, just not quite what I expected.

Mary Lou's book is full of wonderful tips and is very user friendly. I suggust reading it and then setting aside a week-end to play tough-love with your current wardrobe. Start by shopping in your closet first(You will be surprised to find some exciting clothes that you forgot you had!) This book will guide you through an exciting process of finding your own style. By using Mary Lou's guidelines, you will always have a wardrobe that is organized, polished and "Ready to Wear".
Karen E. Costa, Fashion Consultant
Mattapoisett, MA

This book was fantastic. It answers so many of the questions we all ask ourselves everyday. What to wear and what not to wear. After reading it once, I still refer to it often and use it as a "text" book to be sure to keep myself and my wardrobe organized and in fashion.

Mary Lou Andre has found a way to convey this information in an easy-to-read and easy-to-implement manner.