Customer Reviews

The Thoughtful Dresser

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For those who thought clothes and fashion were not important this book is an eye opener. eg Page 120 "How people are dressed is the most reliable indicator of differing periods in history. Not artitecture -"

Page 33 "Trying to put together a fashionable outfit and make up your face was part of the war effort." And the effect (p37) that lipstick had on the women caught up in the war and camps who had suffered so much ..."..at last someone had done something to make them individuals again: they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm."

Page 121 - When looking at old photos of yourself and wondering who those people are 'But I have never not remembered or recognised what I was wearing.'

There is lots of humour and history of designers the author has met and of the story of one designer who, in a prisoner of war camp at age 12 tore off the bottom of the hem of her uniform to make a bow around her bald head so she could 'look pretty.'
I bought the book after reading the great newspaper write up, and first getting it from the library - by page 30 - I knew it was a keeper and bought it. Julie

I am a bit torn with this book. I enjoyed the more personal essays in which Grant gives the reader a memoir of her mother and herself through fashion. The other essays based on women she knows or has interviewed were also interesting. But I felt that she sometimes covered rather well-trodden ground in some of the other essays, like 'people who say they're terrible at shopping' and 'everyone wears clothes so they must pay attention to fashion even if only to avoid it'.

Grant writes well, and if you love clothes I'm sure you will enjoy her book.

This book by Linda Grant is an easy to read avenue through the meaning of dress. With her stylistic imprint as a writer giving the book a personal feel, reading and learning historical facts and background of fashion is not a snore-fest. As a fashion student, I have personally found it a fantastic read as well as educational and extremely inspiring. I recommend reading it in blocks to that you have time to meditate on each couple of chapters. As Henry David Thoreau once said; "A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting." - And this book will do just that.