The sartorialist: X - Scott Schuman

Women in clothes

Iris (DVD)

Summary: An in-depth look into the life of fashion icon Iris Apfel, and her husband of over 60 years: the quick-witted, flamboyantly dressed 93-year-old style maven with an outsized presence on the New York & Palm Beach fashion scenes. Despite the abundance of glamour in her current life, Iris continues to embrace the values and work ethic established during a middle-class Queens upbringing during the Great Depression.

Video Librarian Reviews

This splashy, stylish cinematic portrait of indomitable 93-year-old Manhattan fashionista Iris Apfel—the penultimate film from late documentarian Albert Maysles (his final film will be In Transit)—is somewhat reminiscent of his 1975 classic Grey Gardens, which profiled reclusive eccentrics related to Jacqueline Kennedy. Born Iris Barrel in 1921 in Astoria, Queens, Iris is the only child of Samuel Barrel, whose family owned a glass-and-mirror business, and his wife Sadye, who ran a fashion boutique. After studying art history, Iris worked for Women's Wear Daily, interior designer Elinor Johnston, and illustrator Robert Goodman. She married Carl Apfel in 1948 and the pair launched the textile firm Old World Weavers. Having no children, the couple globe-trotted, acquiring an eclectic collection of exotic souvenirs. Several years ago, Architectural Digest slyly described their luxurious Park Avenue apartment as looking "a little as if the Collyer brothers had moved in with Madame de Pompadour." Iris was involved in the White House interior design restoration projects of nine presidents, from Truman to Clinton. Iris—who is famous for her lament, "There is so much sameness. I hate it!"— wears enormous owl glasses, costume jewelry necklaces, and a multitude of glittering bracelets and clothing adorned with feathers, prints, and bright colors (she says that "it's better to be happy than well-dressed"). Dispensing wit, charm, and wisdom, elderly Iris advocates old-fashioned values and a healthy work ethic: "If you're lucky enough to do something you love, everything else follows." Recommended. (S. Granger) Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2015.

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Worn Stories - Emily Spivack

Worn Stories - Spivack, Emily

Summary: Everyone has a memoir in miniature in at least one piece of clothing. In Worn Stories, Emily Spivack has collected over sixty of these clothing-inspired narratives from cultural figures and talented storytellers.



Publishers Weekly Reviews
Spivak, creator of the Smithsonian's fashion blog, Threaded, assembles a charming collection of one- or two-page essays about favorite items of clothing, each one accompanied on the facing page by a photo of the particular item. Contributors as disparate as mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig, attorney Ross Intelisano, music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, chef April Bloomfield, and performance artist Marina Abramovic, among others, are invited to opine here. Highlights include a tribute to a practical dress and to a garment manufacturer grandfather, "the man who dressed New York" from Jill Meisner (of Refinery 29). Also notable is Spivak's own loquacious ode to a pair of flip-flops worn "precisely, perhaps, because they are so ordinary." Author Heidi Julavits, meanwhile, closely studies her privileged neighbors' insouciant style of dress: "threadbare flannels with paint stains, patched jeans, faded and torn polo shirts." The simple photos of each beloved item—a T-shirt here, a pair of work boots there—are intimate and sweet. Spivak has created a fashion book for everyone who feels that so far they have been left out of the fun.

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Crocheting Clothes Kids Love - Shelby Allaho

Crocheting Clothes Kids Love - Allaho, Shelby

Summary: Features twenty-five designs for garments and accessories for school-age children. Each stylish project for kids can be used with a variety of yarn types in easy-care fibers.



Library Journal Reviews
Most crochet books for children focus on babies and toddlers, so award-winning designer Allaho and crafter Gormley (Go Crochet! Afghan Design Workbook) decided to tackle clothes for a different group: children age six to 12. The collection features garments, including winter wear, and small accessories that take advantage of the lacy and whimsical motifs common in crochet. The projects are appropriate for crocheters of a variety of skill levels, and each one contains step-by-step written directions and full explanations of any special stitches used. Adults may even want some of the accessories for themselves, especially the pompom-studded caravan scarf, a cozy, shawl-like wrap that would suit grown-ups as well as it does youngsters. Allaho and Gormley include patterns for both boys and girls in the collection, and those aimed at boys are more than just token hats and scarves. VERDICT The unique emphasis will appeal to crocheters whose little ones have aged out of the baby and toddler patterns, and children in the target age group will enjoy wearing these designs.

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Parisian chic: a style guide - La Fressange

Parisian chic: a style guide - La Fressange, Ines de

Summary: Celebrity model Inès de la Fressange shares the well-kept secrets of how Parisian women maintain effortless glamour and a timeless allure. Inès de la Fressange—France’s icon of chic—shares her personal tips for living with style and charm, gleaned from decades in the fashion industry. She offers specific pointers on how to dress like a Parisian, including how to mix affordable basics with high-fashion touches, and how to accessorize. Her step-by-step do’s and don’ts are accompanied by fashion photography, and the book is personalized with her charming drawings. Inès also shares how to bring Parisian chic into your home, and how to insert your signature style into any space—even the office. The ultrachic volume is wrapped with a three-quarter-height removable jacket and features offset aquarelle paper and a ribbon page marker. Complete with her favorite addresses for finding the ultimate fashion and decorating items, this is a must-have for any woman who wants to add a touch of Paris to her own style. - (Random House, Inc.)

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Diana Vreeland Bazaar years: including 100 audacious Why don't yous...? - John Esten

Diana Vreeland Bazaar years: including 100 audacious Why don't yous...? - Esten, John

Summary:

"Why Don't You . . .

tie black tulle bows on your wrists?
have a yellow satin bed entirely quilted in butterflies?
remember how delicious champagne cocktails are after tennis or golf? Indifferent champagne can be used for these."

For more than half a century, Diana Vreeland, doyenne of American fashion, beguiled, awed, astonished, and was adored by almost anyone who created or wore clothes.

Irresistible and flamboyant, socialite Mrs. T. Reed Vreeland began her now legendary twenty-five-year tenure at Harper's Bazaar writing a column of audacious advice: extravagant ideas that helped redefine American women and twentieth-century fashion. Her commentary created a fashion frenzy when it began appearing in Harper's Bazaar in 1936. Her ideas were simultaneously stylish and outrageous, and have as much appeal today as they did decades ago.

Here for the first time, John Esten has compiled one hundred of Mrs. Vreeland's kaleidoscopic "Why Don't You . . . ?" suggestions, and paired them with the breathtaking works of such renowned photographers and artists as Munkacsi, Dahl-Wolfe, Hoyningen-Heune, and Bérard, which further capture the dazzling legacy of whimsy, elegance, and style of Mrs. Vreeland's Bazaar years.
- (Holtzbrinck)

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Advanced style - Ari Seth Cohen

Advanced style - Cohen, Ari Seth

Summary: Advanced Style is Ari Seth Cohen's blog-based ode to the confidence, beauty, and fashion that can only be achieved through the experience of a life lived glamorously. It is a collection of street fashion unlike any seen before - focused on the over-60 set in the world's most stylish locales. The (mostly) ladies of Advanced Style are enjoying their later years with grace and panache, marching to the beat of their own drummer. These timeless images and words of wisdom provide fashion inspiration for all ages and prove that age is nothing but a state of mind.

Reviews:
"In print and on film, Mr. Cohen’s arrestingly bedizened models embrace fashion with a sense of play."
Ruth LaFerla, The New York Times

"For all those who are sick and tired of seeing style and fashion presented solely as a young woman’s game, behold 'Advanced Style.'"
Los Angeles Times

"a beautiful catalog of women who aren't over the hill, but rather ahead of the curve."
New York Post

“These gorgeous ladies take away the fear of aging and give us all something to look forward to.” Huffington Post

“These women are proof that personal style advances with age”
StyleList

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Bill Cunningham New York (DVD)

Bill Cunningham New York (DVD)

Summary: Bill Cunningham has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high society charity soirees for the New York Times Style section in his columns On the Street and Evening Hours for decades. Presented is a delicate, funny, and often poignant portrait of a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own humanity and unassuming grace.

Video Librarian Reviews
Richard Press' documentary offers an affectionate portrait of photographer Bill Cunningham, whose snapshots of fashion shows, high society events, and distinctively dressed people on the street have graced the pages of the New York Times for years. What makes this film particularly noteworthy are Cunningham's contradictions. While the octogenarian shutterbug is fanatic about unusual dress—he spends his days on the city streets, scampering around to shoot passersby whose clothes pique his interest—his personal wardrobe is utterly functional. Cunningham moves easily among pampered celebrities, but he travels around on his 28th bike (the previous 27 having been stolen). The shutterbug admits to never having had a serious romantic relationship, but enjoys a bevy of friends, and while he's at home in rarefied social circles, he lives a positively spartan existence, occupying a tiny rent-controlled Carnegie Hall studio lacking kitchen or private bath and almost bereft of furniture aside from the file cabinets where he stores the negatives of all the pictures he's ever shot (at least until he's evicted and forced into a larger place). Cunningham's lifestyle is partially explained by his indifference to money; the photographer has frequently turned down payment in order to maintain his prized independence. Press' approach to his subject is laidback, benefiting from interesting interviews with the voluble Cunningham, his colleagues, and myriad friends and associates. A film about single-mindedness of a cheerful, contented sort—a genial surface beneath which one can glimpse something rather poignant—this is recommended. (F. Swietek) Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2011.

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The BUST DIY guide to life - Laurie Henzel

The BUST DIY guide to life: making your way through every day - Laurie Henzel

Summary: Collects do-it-yourself and craft projects from Bust magazine covering such topics as food and entertaining, travel, and career and finance.
Whether it’s sewing clothes, making cheese, or growing a garden, the modern appeal of “do-it-yourself” projects has a broader reach than ever. And who better to teach us how to DIY our lives than the über-crafty editors of BUST, the quirky, raw, and real magazine “for women who have something to get off their chests”? In The BUST DIY Guide to Life, magazine founders Debbie Stoller (of Stitch ’n Bitch fame) and Laurie Henzel have culled more than 250 of the best DIY and craft projects from its 15-year history. Organized by category—beauty and health, fashion, food and entertaining, career, finance, travel, and sex—and written in BUST’s trademark brazen and witty style, this quintessential DIY encyclopedia from the quintessential DIY magazine is eclectic, empowering, hilarious, and downright practical, truly capturing the spirit of women today.


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Queen of fashion - Caroline Weber

Queen of fashion: what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution - Weber, Caroline

Summary: Examines the various stages in Marie Antoinette's life from the perspective of the fashions that she popularized, from her struggle to adapt to the traditions of French royal glamour to the extreme costumes she developed to project an image of power.



Booklist Reviews
Plenty of proof here, from an associate professor of French at Barnard (and author of Terror and its Discontents, 2003), that clothes did indeed make the woman. Weber's thesis, made clear at the outset, is that the dauphine-soon-turned-queen's costumes became an accurate symbol of her individuality and personality versus political unrest. No minutiae is left unnoticed; for example, Marie Antoinette's struggles with the strictly mandated whalebone corset was the epitome of her initial lack of acceptance by the French court, whereas her creation of the three-foot-high pouffed hair-dress was emblematic of her preoccupation with fashion. One revolution in women's accoutrements, unfortunately, was swapped for another more deadly revolution in politics and freedom. Tales of intrigue dot every page (for instance, the long-standing feud with Louis XV's mistress, Comtesse du Barry), as do the foibles of commoners and royalty. Using bold and engaging prose, the author has created a whole new appreciation for academic writings. ((Reviewed September 15, 2006)) Copyright 2006 Booklist Reviews

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Gunn's golden rules: life's little lessons for making it work - Tim Gunn

Gunn's golden rules: life's little lessons for making it work - Gunn, Tim

Summary: A television personality and fashion consultant offers a simple, accessible guidebook to help readers navigate all aspects of life. Filled with dishy stories of fashion's greatest divas, behind-the-scenes glimpses of "Project Runway's" biggest drama queens, and never-before-revealed insights into his private life, Gunn shares his personal secrets for "making it work"--in your career, relationships, and life.


Staff Review:
Tim Gunn is always a source of sage advice, at least in my opinion. From his amusing anecdotes on the fashion industry, to his charming point of view on proper etiquette for the 21st century, Gunn is the voice of reason in world where pleases and thank yous seem to have become arcane.

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Coco Chanel: The legend and the life - Justine Picardie

Coco Chanel: The legend and the life - Picardie, Justine

Summary: Peels away the layers of romance and myth to reveal the woman who shaped modern fashion, drawing from research in the Chanel archives and an exclusive interview with Chanel's successor, Karl Lagerfeld.

No Review Available

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