Books: Wife Dressing

I've been meaning to review Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife for ages; it's been sitting here on the little typing table I use as an auxiliary desk (which should have a big bin on it labeled "stuff you should get to today but probably won't").

Make no mistake, this is a book primarily about "dressing for HIM" (the sub-subtitle is "With Provocative Notes for the Patient Husband Who Pays the Bills") and, although Fogarty was a very successful designer, she downplays that quite a bit (she spends more time talking about her eighteen-inch waist!). You get the impression that perhaps her Mister (one or all of them; she married three times) wasn't entirely comfortable with a breadwinning wife and that this book, in part, was meant to reassure him that he, too, was important in her life ... even if she was selling thousands of dollars of dresses every year.

But once you get past that, the book is full of gems, such as:

A travel wardrobe is personal. ... It is a condensation of your regular wardrobe, not a separate entity. After all, you're still the same person whether you're at home or far away, and you'll want familiar garments with you. Never cut your gear so close to the bone that you leave your personality behind.

(italics Fogarty's)

or how about this?

As for flagrant bad taste, there aren't too many examples. Shorts on a city street is one of the worst. This shows a lack of self-respect and a contempt for the people who are properly dressed. .... Strapless dresses in town are as bad. If a dress is strapless, it's either a cocktail dress that should be worn after five or else it's a sundress and should stay in the sun.

And my favorite:

The art of courage and discretion is a clarion cry for individuality, a turning away from slavish adherence to every fashion or beauty trend. Courage and discretion go hand in hand: the courage to dare to be yourself, the discretion not to overdo; the courage to do something unusual, the discretion to temper it.

That's good advice for everyone, whether there's a husband in the picture or not. In fact, it's even good advice for husbands themselves.

Books!

First off is Yeah! I Made It Myself, by Eithne Farry, which has been languishing under a pile of language-related books I have to review for I don't know how long. Since I came back from London, at the very least. Which is a shame, because it's a charming book.

I fell into immediate sympathy with the author, who declares (in the first fifty pages) her love for bias tape, sewing with furnishing fabric, and bright colo[u]rs.

But, be aware this is much more of a punk-rock, you-go-girlfriend-type book than a Martha Stewart "here are my 105 downloadable templates" type book. Most of the measurements given are approximate; the "diagrams" are done in what looks like magic marker. If you need constant reassurance that you are "doing it right", this is not the book for you; if you want to feel as if any way you do it is right (within reason), jump right in.

This book would be a perfect present for a teen friend who wants to sew but is put off by the embellished-quilted-vest crowd you see on a lot "traditional" sewing books ... just keep an eye on your curtains.





The other book that's up for review today is 99 Ways To Cut, Sew, Tie & Rock Your Scarf I was really looking forward to this one, because I'm always interested in ways to make clothing-type stuff from things that aren't necessarily fabric (although of course with scarves it's changing one clothing-type thing into another clothing-type thing, or, in this case, 99 other clothing-type things).

All of the 99 versions in this book have women's names, and, believe it or not, my copy fell open to "Erin" ... which is a balloon skirt. Not an auspicious start, although your opinion of balloon skirts may differ from mine. (My opinion is I hate 'em.) I think this was a sign that I'm not the intended audience for this book: first off, I don't really ever "rock" anything I'm wearing -- I prefer to "power-pop" my clothing, the choruses are better -- also I'm not a big fan of the halter top, versions of which I would estimate take up a good quarter of the "99 ways". One other reason why I figured I wasn't the audience for this book: none of the illustrated models are wearing eyeglasses! (Sunglasses don't count.)

However, if you are a halter-top fan, and you have been looking for a good quick balloon-skirt pattern, this book is totally for you. The instructions are clear and easy to follow and there's a great glossary of terms at the end. And even if you don't want 47 scarf-based tops that you can't wear a bra under, the "Jolene" kimono-style jacket is really lovely.

Again, though, this is a sewing book for non-sewers: almost every project can be made without a machine, and the emphasis is heavily on "find the scarf (preferably in a thrift store) today, wear it out tonight."

I actually got two copies of this, so if you want one, here's how to get it: be the first person to tell me where I can buy two more yards of this cotton poplin camouflage fabric:



I had just enough for a skirt ... I thought. Then I saw that I'd dropped the center-back pattern piece on the floor. D'oh! So help me out, and get a free book! Email or comments are both fine ways to enter. If you leave a comment, though, make sure I can reach you to get an address for the sending of your prize!

Book Review: The Meaning of Sunglasses

I was recently sent a copy of Hadley Freeman's The Meaning of Sunglasses to review. I wasn't exactly sure that I would enjoy it; you all know how I feel about most of the fashion-industrial complex. Also I have exactly one pair of (prescription) sunglasses, and they're decidedly not designer (they're very nice tortoise cats-eyes, classic, I've had them for years): what on earth would I find to like in a book called The Meaning of Sunglasses?

The answer, of course, is "quite a bit". Hadley's voice is wry and quite often exasperated and she doesn't take either herself or the fashion industry too seriously. We also agree on the core issues, e.g., dresses:

A good dress will never make you feel fat, it can be worn with flats or heels, and everybody can find a style that suits them—absolutely none of these statements can be applied to trousers with 100 percent certainty.

and shoes:

The brilliant thing about the sudden and surprising emergence of the thick heel—aside from the fact that, after 2000 years, shoemakers seem to have come to grips with the idea of weight distribution—is that it doesn't look like you're trying so hard to be sexy, and this, in itself, is sexier.

Of course, there is much that Ms Freeman and I disagree on: she's very down on orange coats (my favorite coat of the fall was traffic-cone orange); she's not a fan of Liberty ("Liberty prints have a kitsch appeal and so can only be worn in measured doses"), and neither does she like cardigans ("it is a rare woman who gets too excited about buying just one cardigan, never mind four or five" — I must be a rare woman, then ...). Wacky eyeglasses also come in for a little bit of finger-wagging. But her tone is such that I know if I met her in a bar wearing my orange coat, a cotton cardigan over my riotous Liberty-print dress, with bright-blue eyeglasses, she'd roll with it, and we'd have a great time.

Another plus: I laughed out loud several times, especially at this bit about Karl (He-Must-Be-Stopped) Lagerfeld: "Now he looks like a psychotic sixteenth-century German courtier, just as he'd intended."

Ideally, this is a book that a close girlfriend would give you as a gift, with the funnier parts called out with little post-it tags. At $24.95, it's just slightly too expensive (and the content slightly too lightweight) to really justify as a fashion-library addition. Also, if you read it straight through (as I did), some of it has the feel of reworked newspaper columns (Ms Freeman writes for the Guardian), with some repeated phrases and jokes. In fact, while you're waiting for someone to give you this book, I recommend subscribing to her RSS feed.

As for the sunglasses ... you'll have to read the book to find out exactly what they mean. This is a spoiler-free zone, people!

The Dress A Day Guide to Learning To Sew: Part One

pincushion from Dottyral on Etsy

I get a lot of email asking me how to learn to sew, and with so many other things in life, the answer is "It Depends."

First of all, you have to know how you learn. Are you someone who likes the "monkey-see, monkey-do" approach? Then you probably want to learn from a person, instead of a book. Do you want to learn in a big group where you can hide in the back, or do you need one-on-one attention? Do you do better with a kindly-grandma type who's never met a zipper she couldn't fix, or do you want a hip young thing wearing a deconstructed t-shirt? If you are going to learn from a family member or friend, will your relationship survive the first buttonhole? (Be honest with yourself. If a family dinner with Aunt Biddy has you gritting your teeth and wishing for death, she is NOT the person to teach you how to sew.)

If your fingers itch at the thought of not being able to just jump in yourself and TRY things, maybe you should learn from a book. I really like the Reader's
Digest Complete Guide to Sewing, because it has great pictures and is very matter-of-fact; other people swear by the Singer Sewing Essentials book or the Vogue Sewing Book, among other titles. I recommend that, if you go the book route, you buy at least two books (or as many as you can afford the money and space for) so that you can get second opinions if something doesn't work for you. (Remember, sewing is like perl: There's More Than One Way To Do It.)

Then there's the question of What Do You Sew First? Again, how do you work? Will you do better with the challenge of a complicated first project (because you really, really want the result)? Or will you be happy making a basic tote bag or placemat that you wouldn't otherwise want or use, just to learn techniques slowly? Will you not be motivated unless you're sewing beautiful fabric, or will it rip you up inside if you ruin something special?

And another thing: how do you deal with frustration and failure? Because learning to sew, at least at first, will add heaping doses of both into your life, I'm sorry to say. If frustration makes you crazy-angry, with bouts of throwing things and/or screaming, try to sew when your family/roommate/pet parakeets are elsewhere. Take lots of deep breaths. One deep breath for each stitch ripped out is a pretty good ratio.

If "failing" at something makes you want to sleep for a week (and either stop eating altogether or mainline Ben & Jerry's): redefine 'failure'. You didn't fail to make a skirt, you succeeded in learning how NOT to make a skirt! Go into every project, at least for the first few projects, with the goal of learning, and not with the goal of making something couture-level. Define success generously. If you got the machine threaded right, didn't sew through your finger, and the two pieces of fabric join up more or less evenly? You won. Do a victory lap.

More advice: isolate your variables. Don't try everything at once! In other words, don't try to change a pattern's size or design AND do a new technique you've never tried before AND use a difficult fabric: if something goes wrong you will find it hard to figure out just what to blame (except for sunspots: I find it convenient to blame sunspots for everything).

I still think the ideal first project is a full skirt; it gives you only one part of your body to fit (your waist), encourages you to jump right in to zippers (Zippers: not that hard. Take some deep breaths, go slowly, and baste; you'll be fine), and, truly, a full skirt is also forgiving of minor "mistakes". Waistband uneven? Don't tuck in your shirt! Your hem is wobbly? Walk fast, they'll never notice.

Lastly, here are some things I wish I'd known when I first learned to sew ... and that I wish I followed 100% now!

• Cutting is five times as important as construction. Honestly. Once you've cut the pattern, your track is chosen. It's much harder to recover from a cutting error than a sewing error. If you take your time on the cutting out, you will never regret it. Don't cut out patterns when you're tired, angry, or distracted (or, needless to say, drunk); you'll never wear the dress. And all those markings on the patterns? MARK THEM ALL. You won't be able to 'figure it out later' -- believe me, I KNOW.


• Have everything in place before you start sewing. And by everything, I mean, wind one more bobbin than you think you'll need, know where your seam ripper, measuring tape, pins, zipper foot for your machine, etc., are. If the project needs seam binding or buttons or a zipper or interfacing: have it before you start. The fabric store is a sad, sad place at ten p.m. (if it's even open). And once you get home with whatever it was you needed, sitting down with a book will look awfully inviting. (Of course, being by nature impatient and NOT having what you need can lead to some "interesting" design decisions ... not that I would know. Ha.)


• Put your stuff away in the right place when you're done. That way you won't have to spend an hour cleaning up from your LAST project before you can start your NEXT project. Total buzzkill, that is.


• Eliminate the "shouldas" from your sewing life. Has a project descended into that abyss from which it shall never emerge? Write. It. Off. Don't let it hang around your sewing room like some Dickensian ghost. Give it away, cut it into quilt squares, mash it up for papermaking, hold an unfinished-object-swap with all your sewing friends, heck, throw it out or burn it if you have to -- I don't care what you do with it, but once you get to the point where thinking of it makes you feel guilty and self-flagellating, it is not a "unfinished project" but a curséd albatross. Sewing is no longer something people need to do to survive on the frontier [if you ARE on the frontier, pls ignore this part]; it's a FUN HOBBY. Vigorously expunge the parts that aren't fun. So you screwed up. So what? Bury the evidence, deny, deny, deny, and move ON.

I called this "Part One" as I may (or may not, you never know) add other parts later. But don't wait for them! Start now!

Never Bored

I don't know how anyone over the age of 8 is bored any longer. Hasn't the internet killed boredom? I haven't been bored since about 1993, possibly earlier. All you have to do is enter some random search string, like "most beautiful dress", and you get a treasure like this:

The most beautiful dress in the ball-room that season was worn by Miss D. It was a very handsome India muslin. She was not called the belle of the evening, but belle of the season. She was not only beautiful and graceful, but so winning and attractive in her manners, so amiable and lovely, that the belle-pickers, who picked all to pieces, could not find anything to say about her.

...

The ladies were all elegantly dressed, a few of which I will describe. One lady was dressed in white silk, with upper skirt of silk, with white illusion puffings, which swept the floor for half a yard. One well-known East Fourth- street belle wore a double-skirt of illusion, small puffs about half a yard up each side; berthe to match, trimmed with little forget-me-nots, which could not be distinguished from natural flowers; her hair was trimmed with the same shade of blue flowers, drooping down on her snowy neck, which made her look more like wax-work than a human being. She had not too much religion to go to either the East or West-end, whenever she thought it proper to go. There were many others there—but I will only say they were all beautiful.

from A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life, by Eliza Potter, 1859.

C'mon -- who DOESN'T want to read the memoirs of an abolitionist hairdresser of Cincinnati? Especially when it's full of stories about gossips and beautiful dresses and scandal? It's like Little Women crossed with People.

[image from Victoriana.com]

Book Review: Trappings: Stories of Women, Power, and Clothing

I've been meaning to write about Trappings for a while now, and then of course I "tidied" my office and an enormous number of things got put in one of those dread piles (from which only now are the bravest and most stalwart to-dos escaping).

But I'm glad this book struggled back to the top, because I thoroughly enjoyed it. The authors, Tiffany Ludwig and Renee Piechocki (who call themselves Two Girls Working) did something very simple, and very worthwhile: they traveled around and interviewed women about what they wore that made them feel powerful, and why.

The clothing (and makeup, and hair, and tattoos, and so forth) that the women interviewed talk about are all over the place: purple capes, red lipstick, cowboy hats, black bras, bellydancing costumes, and tribal dress. Ludwig and Piechocki seem to have done their best to get a good mix of ages, geographic distributions, socioeconomic classes, races, and (admirably) included transpeople, as well.

My only disappointment with the book is not the authors' fault -- it was that so few women interviewed had MADE their "powerful items." (I think the only people wearing things that they had made themselves were two women who were Eastern Shoshone and Crow, in traditional dress.) I think making something yourself adds an extra dimension to clothing -- I've gotten to the point now where I hardly ever wear a dress or skirt that I didn't make, just because I feel so much better, more competent, and more all-around alive when I'm wearing something I did make.

That said, Trappings is a wonderful read. Check it out!

What do YOU wear that makes you feel powerful? Feel free to tell me in the comments ...

Book Review: Basic Black

I was asked if I wanted a copy of Basic Black for review, and I said "yes, of course." Cathie Black is the president of Hearst Magazines; I am a magazine junkie: why not?

Basic Black is not only very readable (unlike quite a few other how-to-succeed-books I've come across) it's also very enjoyable. Ms. Black has a practical, friendly tone that comes across well on the page, and her advice is of the "this worked for me, I think it will work for you" variety rather than a one-size-fits-all manifesto. The whole book leaves you feeling refreshed and optimistic about the world of work and your place in it.

Here's one of my favorite bits:

If you want to be an innovator, express yourself like an innovator. Dress in something with verve rather than a corporate uniform. Take your team offsite and do something wacky. Wear a costume to a sales meeting [...] and recruit a few others to do the same. Pick a theme -- have people dress like cartoon characters.

I really wish I'd recruited people to dress like cartoon characters more often. It's absolutely on the to-do list now!

One of the things I really appreciated about Ms. Black and her book was that she doesn't think that feminism and business are incompatible. She worked for Ms. and for USA TODAY -- and you don't get more mainstream than USA TODAY! And when people grumbled that she hired "too many women" (whatever THAT means) she made her point in a very direct, concrete, and nonconfrontational way: at a holiday lunch for Hearst executives, she was supposed to make some brief remarks after the meal. She stood up and said: "Some people seem to think I hire too many women. I just want you to know I'm listening to their complaints. So I thought I'd do a little survey. Would the women executives please stand up?" A third of the room stands. Then she asks for the male executives to stand ... and when dozens of men get to their feet, her point is made.

One of her best points, I think, is a slightly-kinder "Get over it," urging women not to dwell on their mistakes but to pick themselves up and move on. "If I needed three days to get over every day I was criticized, I'd never have gotten anything done in my career," she warns. It's more important to get things done than to get things done perfectly, and better to try and fail than never try at all.

If you're looking for a book for a recent college graduate, especially one interested in working in publishing or media (or sales, for that matter), this is an excellent choice, and it's not bad for people who have been in the work world for a while, either.

Books Books Books

The post office has delivered some fun books lately for me to share with you -- I love getting review copies, especially of novels, because then reading for fun magically becomes Work with a capital W. As in, "Honey, I'd love to put away the laundry right now, but I really have to finish this book for Work. You understand, don't you?" Of course, my husband twigged to this little ruse years ago, so there's some eye-rolling involved (and if I'm eating chocolate while "Working" all bets are off) but still. It's fun.

One of the books that was sent to me was this one, Violet on the Runway, which I suppose is technically YA, although it certainly has what we used to call Adult Content. All I know is that if I had come across this when I was thirteen, I would have read it three times, and even as an adult, it was truly entertaining. The people are whole and well-rounded and I liked Violet very much, as the ugly duckling who turns out to be a swan (and who might be happier as a duckling). It was so nice to read a fashion-y book that didn't go overboard with the brand names, didn't seem like an extended game of paper dolls, and which featured people you could like and understand. An excellent book for your favorite fashion-mad teen (and if you're careful and don't get chocolate on the pages, you can read it yourself first).




I was also sent The Collection, a novel set in part in the workrooms of Coco Chanel; kind of a The Devil Wears Prada, only with Coco as the Devil. I tend to like historical fiction, and this was a nice change from kings of the realm and so on. Unfortunately, the characters were a bit flatter than my ideal -- I kept waiting for Isabelle to do something dramatic -- but the plot was such that I read it all in one sitting, so that must mean *something*. (Weirdly, I also got an email blast from The New Yorker yesterday inviting me to a reading of this novel at the Eileen Fisher store in the Water Tower Mall. Is Eileen Fisher the new Chanel and nobody told me? It certainly makes a kind of sense.)

Lastly, this is probably better suited for my other blog, but Burgess Unabridged is just an adorable book, and I'm so glad that Walker has brought it back in print. Gelett Burgess was, in fact, the guy who coined the word blurb, which makes me insanely happy, in a meta kind of way, that I was able to blurb this book. (Not many people get to blurb the blurber.) Burgess Unabridged is a collection of his other neologisms, none of which ever had the success of blurb, but which make for interesting reading, nonetheless. Like the word kipe, which he defines as "A woman's glance at another woman." Leaving aside the heteronormativity of that for the moment, doesn't that word describe every two-figure illustrated pattern envelope you've ever seen? Or his word gorgule, meaning "elaborate bad taste," something we always know when we see it -- and now have a handy word for. Burgess Unabridged is illustrated, too, by Herb Roth, in a kind of Aubrey Beardsley-meets-Gahan-Wilson style.

There. A little light reading for a Wednesday?

as beautifully dressed as birds

DORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?

OLD LECTURER. Yes; and always to dress yourselves beautifully—not finely, unless on occasion, but then very finely and beautifully too. Also you are to dress as many other people as you can; and to teach them how to dress if they don't know; and to consider every ill-dressed woman or child whom you see anywhere, as a personal disgrace; and to get at them, somehow, until everybody is as beautifully dressed as birds.

from John Ruskin, The Ethics of the Dust (1891)

Why doesn't Ruskin's "Old Lecturer" tell the girls to "get at" men, too? Why are ill-dressed men not a "personal disgrace" to them? Discuss.

Book Review: Sew What! Skirts

I'm being asked a lot now about how to learn to sew, and since my method, although ideal (get my mom to teach you) is somewhat impractical to recreate, I've been looking at gateway-drug, I mean introductory, sewing books.

Sew What! Skirts looked good from the get-go, and I wasn't disappointed.

It's not just that several of the skirts offer pockets (albeit simple patch ones), or that the idea is to learn fitting techniques that you can apply across multiple (patternless) skirts, or that rickrack features prominently. It's that I think that the authors (Francesca Denhartog & Carole Ann Camp) have figured out what motivates beginning sewists: it's the fabric, stupid.

Fabric is what draws folks in. It's the promise of taking that gorgeous yardage and draping it around oneself (or one's home) that leads people down the path towards the $7000 Bernina. And in every home-ec horror story I've ever heard, the indignity of having to make something useless has been compounded by the useless thing having to be done in boring, hideous, cheap fabric.

The fabrics shown in this book are, frankly, awesome. Beautiful patterns, lovely weaves; not a scratchy double-knit in the lot. The skirts are wearable, the instructions clear.

This is a very good book for beginners, in that it explains *everything*. The instructions stop just short of including "Inhale. Exhale." They also, bless them, allow for the possibility that you might screw up, and screw up badly. They advise you to leave extra seam allowances so that you can fix your mistakes, for example, and tell you to start with cotton, as it's easier.

Lately I've been feeling a bit guilty about some of my sewing cheerleading -- I'm worried that I'm making it sound too easy, and that I've forgotten how hard it was for me to learn some techniques -- things I could do backwards in a hailstorm now, but which occasioned many lonely hours with a seam ripper before. Part of that frustration was me being an impatient teenager, sure, but part also is just doing and doing and doing until you can feel when you have something right. This book has a little of the same cheerleading problem, but since it's at such a basic level, and advocating a do-your-own-thing, "it's not a flaw, it's an interesting design decision" attitude, I feel as if it's warranted. The only change I would have made would be to emphasize more the need for practice.

Sewing, I've come to realize, is a lot more like athletics than I'd like to admit. Despite having been, at one time or another, a cross-country runner (slowly), a college soccer player (ineptly, and inept in Div III at that), and a discus and shotput thrower (not very far, and not for very long), and despite my obsession with roller-skating, I think of myself as profoundly unathletic. So the realization that sewing, like other muscle-memory activities, is something that you just can't read a book on and be note-perfect at, was one that was slow to come to me. But, just as you don't have to train for a marathon to enjoy running for exercise (shudder), you don't have to practice couture techniques to make a perfectly lovely skirt. All you have to do is practice, period. Those practice runs are still exercise, even if they aren't marathons, and those practice garments are still wearable -- and if you are patient and follow the instructions in this book, they'll be better than wearable.

So: this is a good book, especially for beginning sewers. Fabric is good. Experimentation is good. You (too) can be good. Take it to heart, and take your heart to the sewing machine.

Questions for, and Answers from, Meg Cabot

So recently I was offered a chance to read & review Queen of Babble, by Meg Cabot. Somehow (probably due to living under a rock, or at least below grade for the past decade) I managed to miss the phenomenon that is Meg Cabot, but I'm clued in now, and will probably be wolfing down her other books in short order, as I enjoyed Queen of Babble immensely.

As part of the publicity-industrial complex, I've also been given the opportunity to ask Meg some questions (on your behalf, dear readers) -- here they are, with her answers. Doesn't Meg sound like someone you'd love to go vintage shopping with?

Q. I love Lizzie's clothes in the book, especially the Lilly Pulitzer bathing suit and the Anne Fogarty linen dress. Are they based on real dresses you've had (or wished you had)?

First of all…love your site! It’s so adorable.

Okay, in answer to your question…I have a dear friend who is nuts for anything Lilly and I have to admit, she has passed the addiction on to me. I live in Key West, Florida, though, so everything is Lilly all the time here. My poor friend lives in Indiana and has to restrict her Lilly wearing to summer only, or she’d freeze to death. I do have about five Lilly bathing suits.

The Anne Fogarty dress was pure lust … I saw it online and fell in love with (it was way too small for me) but since my character worked in a vintage shop, I figured it was possible she could have snagged one like it at a discount in her own size at some point.

Q. Can you tell me a story about a dress that "got away"?

Oh! Well, yes, my mom’s prom dress. It wasn’t designer--she made it herself, my mom’s a fantastic seamstress--but I’ve seen photos, and it was this gorgeous off-the-shoulder pale blue chiffon number with a full skirt and crinoline, and pretty fake flowers between the boobs.

When I asked her what happened to it, she just shrugged like, “Why would I keep my old prom dress?” I have ALL my old prom dresses … and I didn’t even MAKE them! UGH! I still get depressed when I think about it. She gave it to Goodwill or something. Some lucky girl out there has my mom’s now vintage gorgeous handmade prom dress.

Q. What are you obsessed with, clothing-wise?

Jeans. I have yet to find a pair of jeans that actually look good on me. And I am 40. It’s so sad. I know I should just give up but I can’t. They have to be out there somewhere, right? But they all look terrible on me. Bootcut, stretch, you name it. But sometimes you just CAN’T wear a skirt [When? -- Ed.], and khakis, slacks, and cords look even worse on me. Don’t even talk to me about leggings. I’m just not a “pants” person.

Oh, great looking jeans…where are you????

Q. In the book, Lizzie dislikes low-rise jeans (and I don't blame her). If you could make one fashion-y thing disappear from the earth tomorrow, what would it be?

Anything with a designer’s name on it in large letters. Really, my hatred for all things Juicy borders on the pathological. I don’t mind if, for instance, Diane von Furstenberg is written in small writing subtly somewhere in the print of a dress, or the word Prada is on a buckle.

But I will not buy anything Juicy, or a Louis Vuitton bag with LV all over it, or Gucci or Chanel sunglasses with the giant G or CC (well, okay, not that I would buy these things anyway because they’re too expensive, but let’s say I was going to splurge) or even a scarf by these designers because the brand logo is so huge on them, it’s like you’re a walking advertisement for a product!

Okay, sorry, I just ranted. But you asked! I have to go drink some water to calm down now.

Q. I am always looking for an excuse to use the word 'bathos.' Were there any words you wanted to use in the book that you couldn't work in? Do you have favorite words in general?

Okay, back. Wow, bathos is good. I don’t think I’ve ever used that in a sentence (true confession: I had to go look it up). That is quite a word!

I can’t think of any favorite words. I guess I like them all. But “princess” has always had a tendency to leap out at me -- also “queen”…! I can’t think why… ;-)

Q. I loved Lizzie's "reading" of Luke's clothes on the train. Do you do a similar party trick?

I’m not as good at it as Lizzie! She can do it on the spot and it probably took me multiple days to write that scene. Plus Lizzie doesn’t misjudge people based on their clothes, and I do. I made the BIG mistake of judging my husband by how he was dressed at the party where I met him. I instantly dismissed him as a boring preppy (he does dress preppy … but he’s not boring, and he is actually a rebel at heart).

Years later I met him again and realized my mistake. If you had told me that day that I’d end up married to him, I’d never have believed you (also, I probably would have killed myself ... but then I was sixteen and a bit drama-prone)! But it’s probably just as well since I got to kiss all those frogs in between before finding my handsome prince (he would totally throw up if he saw I wrote that) ….

Q. Lizzie lost 30 pounds in three months before the book begins. How realistic do you think that is?

Well, with Atkins and daily aerobic exercise it’s possible, but of course in the sequel out at the end of this month, Queen of Babble in the Big City, Lizzie has gained it all back as she begins to eat normally again (actually, she gains a lot of it back in France, as soon as she starts eating bread). Hmmm. French bread.

Oh, sorry. I got distracted.

I actually lost that much weight that fast myself on Atkins once. But, like Lizzie, promptly put 20 pounds back on. But bread is so worth it.

And, like Lizzie, I find you can always wear Spanx to squeeze into those special somethings (and let out the waist a little).

Q. Was there a dress you wanted to work into the story, but couldn't?

Ha! That’s what sequels are for!

Actually, in Queen of Babble in the Big City, Lizzie gets a job as a vintage wedding gown restorer in New York City, so I was able to squeeze in tons more dresses for her (and wedding gowns). And I’m working on the third and final book in the series, which will be out next year, Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, in which, as the title suggest, Lizzie plans her own wedding … so there’s lots more “research” to do. If you can call it research when you get to spend all day looking up vintage dresses and wedding gowns online! It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it!

Thanks for the opportunity to be interviewed on your site! It was really fun!

Meg

Saturday Night Hat

Caroline was nice enough to send me a copy of Saturday Night Hat by Eugenia Kim, and I *really* like it.

First of all, and I know this is the kind of thing only an editor would notice or appreciate, but one Joanne Paek is given credit, right on the cover, for technical writing. That's awesome, because, well, technical pattern writing is HARD. And no matter how good you are at the doing, the writing of the doing is a completely different skill. I really admire Kim (and her publisher, Potter Craft) for not only hiring a technical writer, but giving her prominent credit. That's a sign of a generous spirit and consideration for the readers.

And that generous spirit continues through the book. Kim outlines half-a-dozen classic hats with as many variations each. I'm not especially a hat person (okay, I love hats, but that thing you do when you look in the mirror and take one thing off before you leave the house? What usually comes off, in my case, is the hat) but I'm definitely going to make her beret, and probably the cloche and the fedora as well, if I can figure out a way to keep the latter two from fighting with my glasses. Some of her hats are worth wearing contact lenses for, and that's saying something.

One last thing: isn't that bib dress on the cover adorable! I love it with the fedora (although I also believe that cowboy boots are fashion-victimy nine times out of ten. Of course, every time I see that tenth woman on whom cowboy boots are *perfect*, I change my mind ...)

Thank you, Caroline! What a great book!

The Culture of Sewing, edited by Barbara Burman

In my prowls through the library I came across this title, and I have to say I learned an enormous number of things from it, including:

• Vogue, Butterick, and McCalls produced more than 600 patterns a year each in the 1930s and early 1940s, dropping to an average of 500 patterns a year thereafter. (And when you put it that way, I hardly have any patterns at all! Let's see, the 10 years of the 1950s times three pattern companies times 500 ... and that doesn't even count Advance or the newspaper pattern companies ... or modern patterns ... )
  


• McCalls were the first printed patterns, patenting them in 1919. When the patent expired in 1938, most of the other pattern companies started using them, except for Vogue, which continued to use hand-cut patterns until 1956. McCalls was also the first company to produce patterns that were licensed copies of Paris designs.


• The price of a Singer sewing machine in the 1860s was $100 -- $50 if you were the wife of a minister (which should tickle the writer of this funny and useful blog; thanks to Sendhil for the link!).

The Culture of Sewing also led me to this book (which I'll have to try to get from interlibrary loan), and this one, which I can't believe I didn't have, and will now have to buy.

All in all a successful read ... although some of the essays (it's a collection) were much too theoretical for my enjoyment, most of them were very good reads. One even had a word I can't find anything else about: humby, in this context:

Household duties -- worried over new poplin dress, bought last winter which is a perfect humby -- looking as if it were rough dried. Pressed it.

This is from the diary of a Susan McManus, in Philadelphia, in 1869. There was an actress named Humby about that time (it's a commonish surname) but I can't make any links or find evidence of other uses like this. Yet.

Is there anything more pleasurable than reading a good book about a subject you're fascinated by? (If there is, don't tell me, I have enough trouble keeping up with all I have to do already.)

[No cover image, as it's NSFW. It's an arresting and beautiful image, but I have to say that one of the New Laws of the Internet should be that if you want people to blog about your book, it helps to not put nekkid people on the cover.]