The Way She Looks Tonight: Five Women of Style [Hardcover]

Marian Fowler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1996

Empress Eugenie of France from the court of Louis Napoleon, Elinor Glyn from 1920s Hollywood, Marlene Dietrich, the Duchess of Windsor, and Jacqueline Kennedy are all examined in terms of the clothes they wore and the style they brought to their respective periods.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Reading this curious and frustrating book is like playing a game of Trivial Pursuit based on the history of fashion. There are lots of anecdotes, well told, many familiar, about the five disparate women spotlighted here: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Marlene Dietrich, the Duchess of Windsor, Elinor Glyn and Eugenie Bonaparte. We learn that Eugenie's famous Parisian designer, Worth, was originally from a British village and was the first male to design clothes for women. Elinor Glyn was famous for her draped tiger skins and "it," whatever "it" was. (Douglas Fairbanks Jr., she opined, didn't have "it" because his ears stuck out too much.) There's little new about Wallis Simpson, and Jacqueline Kennedy is portrayed as a fanatic, extravagant shopper who wore 400 outfits in 16 months in the White House. The telling of tales is competent, but Fowler (In a Gilded Cage) tries to force the book to carry a sociological weight far beyond its strength. A heavy-handed introduction that quotes, among others, Thomas Carlyle and Thorstein Veblen, is followed by an absurd afterword in which Fowler insists: "There's another lesson here, and it's a moral one. Outer beauty can produce inner." Illustrations.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Combining biography with social commentary, Fowler (In a Gilded Cage, St. Martin's, 1994) provides an intelligent analysis of the style and influence of five very different women who turn out to have had more in common than one would have expected. She gives a fascinating chronological look at the lives and fashions of Empress Eugenie of France, Elinor Glyn, Marlene Dietrich, the Duchess of Windsor, and Jacqueline Onassis. Though readers will probably pick the book up for the chapter on Onassis (which unfortunately makes no mention of the Sotheby's auction of her property), the chapters on the other women are also well worth reading. One learns, for example, that the Duchess of Windsor's formidable mother, on her deathbed, asked her daughter if she was wearing a brown dress. Wallis replied that she was. " 'Thought so,' sniffed her mother in the same exasperated tone that had greeted Wallis's childhood misdemeanors and preceded the hairbrush's whack. 'Whatever made you choose such an unbecoming color?'" Fowler's work is full of revealing moments like this and will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in fashion or in the lives of these five fashionable women. Recommended for public libraries.?Elizabeth Mellett, Brookline P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 341 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; First Edition ~1st Printing edition (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312147570
• ISBN-13: 978-0312147570
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,416,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Style? No: greed, obsession and ridiculousness., June 28, 1998

By 

Janet - [e-mail] (Hamilton, Ontario.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Way She Looks Tonight: Five Women of Style (Hardcover)

Marian Fowler's book is very educational in a National-Enquirer/Star Magazine kind of way: lots of dirt, not much substance but overall a good read if you are looking for a relaxing book that doesn't challenge you to think too much.

The five women depicted were shown in a different light than ever brought forth before: clothes were an unhealthy obsession for these women as their pursuit for the "perfect outfit" ruled their lives. Perhaps this is how they dealt with their insecurities, but over-all, all of these women were protrayed as shallow, useless human beings.

Should this book ever go to a second edition, it would not surprise me that Diana, Princess of Wales would be included as a sixth chapter as there are shades of her insecurities and love of clothes in all the women presented....she would fit in nicely.

I DID enjoy it although her use of little known adjectives (ex: solipism) sent me to the dictionary and I am an avid reader. One small error though that must have slipped by the author: Consuelo Vanderbilt was the Duchess of Marlborough, not the Duchess of MANCHESTER.... Fowler should know as she wrote a book on Blenheim Castle!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Absolutely Delicious Read, January 27, 2003

By 

K. "bookkitten" (CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Way She Looks Tonight : Five Women of Style (Hardcover)

This is a book that traces the lives a five women through their use of clothing as a means to achieve power. The book does not focus on their charitable activities, their acts of kindness, their good deeds and works - nor should it; such information is readily available elsewhere. Sadly, because the book describes how these women defined their places in the world via externals (fabrics, jewels, and the like), it's easy to dismiss the women as shallow, but those who do are missing the point of the book entirely. The author describes in great detail how clothing radiates primal signals and symbols, as well as how these women were masters of the art of communicating what they wished through this means. And not only is the infomation pithy and satisfying, the author's writing style is an absolute delight. I'm frankly surprised that this book is out of print because I think it's a classic. One of the most interesting books I've come across in a long time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars fluffy but well done, August 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Way She Looks Tonight: Five Women of Style (Hardcover)

It's a bit fluffy and shallow, and Fowler's attempts to psychoanalyse her subjects tend to fall flat, but she still manages to educate and entertain. I did wonder about her portrayal of Jackie Onassis and of the Duchess of Windsor, both of whom came off looking like truly dreadful people. IMHO the sections on Elinor Glyn and Marlene Dietrich are the best.

(I think the Consuelo referred to in the book as Elinor Glyn's friend is Consuelo Yznaga, who was in fact Duchess of Manchester. Consuelo Vanderbilt was duchess of Marlborough. Both are profiled in Fowler's "In A Gilded Cage.")