Book Review: Astor Place Vintage

Cover of Astor Place Vintage Paperback

Within a few pages of beginning to read the novel Astor Place Vintage, I was captivated and unable to tear myself away from the interwoven stories of Amanda and Olive. Written in alternating chapters, the book begins with 39-year old Amanda, a vintage clothing dealer who visits an elderly client and comes across Olive's journal in a trunk of clothing from the early 1900s. As Amanda's own life begins to unravel, she finds comfort within the pages of Olive's journal from 1907, especially since she, like Olive, wants to be independent and self-supporting. Although more than a century separates their lives, Olive and Amanda share a love of New York City and the backdrop of the city's history becomes another character in the story.

Book Review: Driving with Plato

Being born, starting school, getting a job, falling in love, getting married, having children, having a midlife crisis, retiring -- these are a sampling of the life markers that Robert Rowland Smith elucidates in his book Driving with Plato: The Meaning of Life's Milestones. Frankly, I never really had an interest in philosophy until I realized that fashion theory is deeply rooted in philosophy and ever since then, I've been immersed in it far deeper than I ever expected to be. This was one of the books I read over Christmas (in the midst of my existential crisis) and offers a charming introduction to philosophy.

Divided into chapters according to life's milestones, the book considers the meaning to key events in our lives. Written in an engaging and warm voice, Robert Rowland Smith offers an insightful, intelligent and witty analysis. In the introduction he says "If life is a mystery, then let's take advantage of everything at our disposal to shed a little light. Besides, where asking about the meaning of life is too large a question to be helpful, breaking things down into life's milestones can give us a little bit of traction. To drive with Plato is to take a fresh look at the moments that define the all too brief transit our car makes across the earth. There are some remarkable ideas to explore en route."

Title: Driving with Plato, The Meaning of Life's Milestones
Author: Robert Rowland Smith
Publisher: Free Press, New York/Toronto
Category: Non-fiction
Number of Pages: 235
Price: US $19.99, Canada $22.99 (hardcover)
E-book also available.
Link: Driving with Plato

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

How Georgia Became O'Keeffe: Lessons on the Art of Living

 

There are many, many books on the life and work of Georgia O'Keeffe - so many in fact that there are multiple pages of listings on Amazon.... Her visionary brilliance as an artist, her fierce independence as a woman, and her turbulent relationship with Alfred Steiglitz give her a mysterious aura that fascinates us all. It is almost a wonder that there is anything left to write about her. And yet, this did not faze Karen Karbo when she decided to put her own spin on the life of this artistic legend. 

Karen Karbo is the author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel and How to Hepburn. She has a unique gift for biography, crafting a narrative that both delights and amuses the reader, as well as mining that person's life for nuggets of inspiration and life lessons. (Read my January 2010 interview with her here). When Karen wrote to me about her new book, I knew that I had to put down my scholarly journals and get this book, especially since Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers were a huge source of inspiration in my earliest painting attempts. Not yet available in Canada, I ordered How Georgia Became O'Keeffe: Lessons on the Art of Living on Amazon and it has been my company in the wee hours of the morning during my latest bout of insomnia. 

Book Review: Bride of New France

In 1669, New France referred to a part of Canada now known as Quebec. This densely forested land was cruel to its first inhabitants, who faced starvation, bitter cold and hostile natives, and being banished to New France was considered a fate worse than death. Nevertheless, there was a program to populate this new country by sending young women to New France as marriage partners for the men and soldiers already in the land.  This is the premise of the book Bride of New France, which is the story of one such young girl by the name of Laure Beausejour. The story begins in France where she is a Bijoux (an apprentice laceworker) living in the dormitory at Salpetriere Hospital, moves across the stormy Atlantic Ocean in a perilous journey and ends in the wild territory of New France.

This novel is the debut work of Suzanne Desrochers who is completing her Ph.D thesis in England on the migration of women to colonial North America from Paris and London. Clearly she is well versed in history and much of the story rings true. But like many first time authors, the book is somewhat inconsistent in flow with some parts of the story that lag and other plot points that seem over the top and unnecessary to the story. I liked the book enough to read it anyway as it paints a vivid picture of the harsh reality of this inhospitable land, but I never was really able to identify or even like the main character. Laure seems unreachable and unknowable, even though the story is about her. But no matter, the book is worth reading anyway.

One aspect of the book that I particularly enjoyed was the fact that Laure was a gifted needleworker and seamstress. She makes her own clothes and the image of her lovely dresses, totally inappropriate to the harsh wilds, hanging from the rafters of her home, is one that has stayed with me.

It's been a while since I read the non-fiction accounts of Susanna Moodie's Roughing it in the Bush and  Catharine Parr Traill's The Backwoods of Canada, Letters from the Life of an Emigrant Officer but The Bride of New France has reawakened my curiosity about the role of women in settlement of Canada. There are so many books, so little time....

Title: Bride of New France
Author: Suzanne Desrochers
Category: Historical fiction
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Number of Pages: 292 (Paperback edition)

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Book Review: Various Positions

Ballet dancers are a class of athletes unto themselves. The discipline, sacrifice and passion required to have a career as a ballet dancer is almost beyond comprehension and perhaps only those that are driven to dance understand how difficult a life it is.

Various Positions is the story of a young girl named Georgia who is accepted into the Royal Toronto Ballet Academy and becomes obsessed with achieving perfection as a dancer. During the course of her studies, she struggles with a dysfunctional family situation and a growing awareness of her sexuality.

"I adjusted my leotard strap. Molly, in front of me, did too. Something about his nastiness was irresistible. It was like when someone teases you, and you're charmed against your will. We repeated the exercise. I channelled pure power into my muscles, could picture the energy, hot and white. I had never wanted to be so perfect before. When we finished, Roderick pushed himself off the piano and walked slowly across the studio floor. I could see only the side of his face, but I was desperate to read his expression. Was he pleased with our work this time?" (page 77)

Book Review: If Walls Could Talk by Lucy Worsley

Curator, historian and author Lucy Worsley knows how to make history accessible, interesting and entertaining. In her latest book If Walls Could Talk, An Intimate History of the Home, she takes us on an intimate journey through the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen. It sounds like it might be a dull topic for a book, when in fact "every single object in your home has its own important story to tell". Lucy's saucy writing style makes the most mundane historical fact seem fresh and original. Divided into four parts covering the four main rooms of the house, the chapter titles include such teasing titles as: A History of the Bed, Sex, The Whole World is a Toilet, A History of Clutter, The Wretched Washing Up, Speaking to the Servants.... Lucy knows how to turn a phrase and the book almost seems like an intimate conversation between friends. And although the book lacks footnotes, it has an extensive bibliography for history buffs that want to find out more.

Of course, one of my favourite chapters was on the history of knickers. Although I am well versed in this topic, Lucy is not shy in telling it like it was..... "A huge hooped skirt meant that drawers were impractical if you needed to use the toilet without completely undressing. So ladies went commando, and squatted over a chamber pot when required. This meant that toilets were everywhere and nowhere. The bedchamber, an ante-room, even the street: all were potential places to go." (page 43)

Engaging, delightful and fun are words to describe Lucy's book and they are also words that describe her as a person. My interview with Lucy for her last book  The Courtiers: Splendor and Intrigue in the Georgian Court at Kensington Palace continues to be one of my most popular posts and no doubt reflects the enormous popularity of her show for the BBC.



Title: If Walls Could Talk, An Intimate History of the Home
Author: Lucy Worsley
Publisher: Bloomsbury House 2011
Category: Non-fiction
Number of Pages: 331

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Book Review: Dreams of Joy

Lisa See is the author of one of my favourite fiction books - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - which was recently adapted into a film. I also was entranced by Peony in Love. Her stories transcend time but are rooted in history to bring alive themes of love between mother and daughter, love between best friends and love for one's country. A captivating story teller, Lisa See's books illuminate the Chinese culture in a way that makes me yearn to know more.

When I saw her latest book, Dreams of Joy, the sequel to Shanghai Girls at the book store, I snapped it up with great anticipation. The title and the image on the front led me to believe that this would be a joyful story. And while it is is another beautifully written novel that has great depth and poignancy, it could have used a warning label.

The book is set during a tragic period in China's history called the Great Leap Forward. During this time period of 1958-1961, the Communist Party of China instituted reforms intended to transform the country from an agrarian economy to a modern industrial society. In short, the reform initiative was a disaster and millions of people died in a horrific famine and by violence at the hands of party officials. The horror of living through this time is conveyed in great detail through the eyes of the main characters of the story, Joy and her mother Pearl.  I am not at all sorry that I read this book, but I did not realize what I was getting into.... If you are looking for a light summer read, this book is not for you.

Title: Dreams of Joy
Author: Lisa See
Publisher: Random House 2011
Category: Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 354

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Book Review: B as in Beauty

It was a lazy summer weekend. The weather in Toronto was glorious, with brilliant sunshine and deliciously warm temps. I gave myself a vacation - no cooking, no errands, no work, and no calorie counting allowed. It's funny how a simple shift in attitude turned my own backyard into paradise. One of my favourite things to do on a summer day is to lay in the backyard under an umbrella and read. I chose what looked to be a chic lit book, hoping that it had the thread of a plot that would sustain my interest over an afternoon and this book fit the bill perfectly.

B as in Beauty is the story of Beauty Maria Zavala, a young ambitious copywriter who has always been a bit uncomfortable with her body. Of zaftig proportions, she dresses to blend into the scenery and is treated like part of the background by her boss and coworkers. In a chance encounter with a Russian fairy god-mother, her life takes a bizarre twist and she finally discovers that self confidence is the secret to being beautiful. She learns to own her beauty and her power and the story ends happily ever after.

This was the perfect summer weekend read. It was both funny and sweet. It wasn't until I finished the book and read the back cover that I discovered that the author is a man!

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Book Review: Girl in Translation

Although most of us probably think that sweatshops no longer exist, every cheap piece of clothing that we buy probably came from one. It wasn't until I read the novel Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok that I understood what goes on in such places. There used to be a "sweatshop"  not far from my studio.  This place was off limits so to speak - marked by heavy doors with Chinese characters - from which  tired and sweaty workers emerged covered with fibres and still wearing dust masks over their faces. I never really gave it much thought until I read this book...

Girl in Translation is about a young girl named Kimberly Chan who comes to New York from Hong Kong with her mother. Burdened by the heavy debt owed to the aunt who helped them immigrate,  they are at the mercy of this mean-spirited relative who also runs the clothing factory in which they must work. With the mother's piece work wages garnished to repay the debt, they have no choice but to live in a roach and rat filled apartment without heat in Harlem.  Kimberly works with her mother at the factory after school and on Saturdays while trying to learn English and do her schoolwork. Her innate intelligence, hard work and resilience serve her well and she manages to earn a scholarship to a private high school where she is able to start the slow climb to a better life.

This coming of age story is utterly compelling and it is the type of book that is hard to put down. The reality of the sweatshop is so grim and so horrible that it is hard to fathom how any of it could possibly be true.... And yet, the author herself came from such a background, earning a bachelor's degree from Harvard and an MFA in fiction at Columbia. Although the book is clearly semi-autobiographical, I almost wish the author had written it as a memoir so I had a better sense of where the line between fiction and reality lies in this work. But sometimes truth is even a stranger tale than fiction.

Title: Girl in Translation
Author: Jean Kwok
Category: Fiction
Publisher: Riverhead Books, New York 2010
Number of Pages: 303 (paperback edition)

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Book Review: Seventeenth-Century Dress Patterns, Book One

The cover of this book with the ghostly x-ray image of a slashed satin bodice from 1630 is but a hint of the extraordinary contents within. Edited by Susan North and Jenny Tiramani, Seventeenth-Century Dress Patterns (Book One) includes patterns for items from the Victoria and Albert Museum collection including several waistcoats, a mantle, a smock, hood, gloves and other items. Enhanced by colour photographs, x-ray images, highly detailed patterns, cutting instructions, technique descriptions and images of paintings, the book is intended to provide experts and home-sewers with the means to replicate these pieces as well as minimize the repeated handling of the objects from the museum's collection. Seventeenth-Century Dress Patterns is extraordinary in its content and its beauty and also builds on the cumulative work of Janet Arnold as well as other dress historians like Norah Waugh and Dorothy Burnham.

This is the first book in a new pattern book series published by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The new format was the inspiration of Jenny Tiramani, who not only worked as a costumer for the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre from 1997 to 2005, but also completed Janet Arnold's last book Patterns of Fashion 4 (after Janet's untimely death). Last year, I heard Jenny Tiramani speak at the Royal Ontario Museum when she visited to research some items from the museum's collection (read the post about her talk here). Her attention to detail, willingness to share her knowledge and her charm are reflected within the pages of this meticulously crafted book.

Title: Seventeenth-Century Dress Patterns, Book One
Edited by: Susan North and Jenny Tiramani
Publisher: V&A Publishing, London, 2011
Category: Non-fiction, Historical Dress
Number of Pages: 160

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Book Review: Lunch in Paris

This is one of the books I packed on my recent trip to Paris. When I travel overseas, I seem to want to sleep when I should be awake and am awake when I should be sleeping, so packing a good book is a must. Lunch in Paris, A Love Story with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard, captivated and entertained me during several nights of jet-lag induced insomnia.

Although the book is a memoir, it reads a little bit like romantic fiction. The story is about a girl that takes a break from her studies in London, goes to Paris for a weekend, meets a handsome Frenchman -- and marries him. Uprooting herself and her ambitions for the sake of love, she fills her days by visiting the markets and conjuring up dishes like Duck Breasts with Blackberries (page 101) on the hotplate in their tiny apartment. Her husband is blissfully happy while she struggles with her ambitions to be more than a wife. The tale is charming from beginning to end and the sixty recipes included in the book seem to be both mouth-watering and manageable.

This is the perfect book for either a lazy summer afternoon when you wish you were in Paris or a late night when you are in Paris and cannot sleep.  And when you are done, you can find out what happened after the book by visiting the author's blog at www.elizabethbard.com.

Title: Lunch in Paris, A Love Story with Recipes
Author: Elizabeth Bard
Publisher: Back Bay Books, Little Brown and Company, New York. 2010
Category: Memoir
Number of Pages: 326 plus reading group guide

Drawing Lab

Given that I've spent many, many hours in figure drawing classes, it might seem odd that I am even reading a book called Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists. I know how to draw but I feel like I needed something to help get me back to the drawing board after the many months I've spent  doing research. Plus it feels like time to infuse some whimsy into my work. The charming cover of this book by Carla Sonheim was enough to sell me on it.

The aim of Drawing Lab is to make drawing fun. Divided into a series of 52 creative exercises, the book relieves the pressure of how to get started and what to draw. Although it is divided into thematic sections of inspiration (animals, people, nature, imagination etcetera), you can start anywhere in the book and find your fearless and creative inner child again.  Charming quotes in each section are gentle reminders to have fun, such as this quote by Carl Jung on page 82: "What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Here is the key to your earthly pursuits."

Carla Sonheim, the author of Drawing Lab, is a painter, illustrator and workshop facilitator. Check out her lovely blog here. She writes with a clarity that any author would admire and adds an array of examples to each page. In fact, the book is so thoughtfully designed that it would work for almost any age group.

One exercise that I found surprisingly freeing was drawing with my wrong hand (my left hand). After a couple tries at that, I also drew this portrait in pencil with my wrong hand using a single unbroken line. Like Carla says "It's a paradox: when you have complete freedom, you often "freeze up" and do nothing." I was so sure it would just go straight into the bin but there is something that appeals to me about this not-so-perfect portrait - even though the eyes are a bit wonky and the proportions are slightly off. It didn't scan very well but it was fun!

Wrong-hand, continuous line portrait exercise by Ingrid Mida

Title: Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists
Author: Carla Sonheim
Publisher: Quarry Books, USA 2010
Category: Non-fiction, art
Number of Pages: 144

Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet

The New York Times proclaimed Apollo's Angels by Jennifer Homans to be one of the ten best books of 2010 and some have described it as the definitive work on the history of ballet. I'm only four chapters in and I'm utterly enchanted. This book was clearly a labour of love for the author who was once a professional dancer with the American Ballet Theatre.

Tracing ballet to its roots in the as the dance of kings and courtiers in the 16th century, Homans follows the development of ballet over the centuries into its current form. Although the book is dense and requires careful reading, true lovers of ballet won't mind devoting time to this exquisite work.

Every chapter provides evidence of the author's painstaking research over ten years.  One example of her attention to detail is evident in this passage about Marie Antoinette:

"In these painterly tableaux the dancers often froze in a snapshot image before moving on, and Noverre even thought to introduce pauses into his ballets to focus attention on "all the details" of these "pictures". 
It was not an original idea: tableaux figured prominently in Diderot's ideas for a new dramatic theater, and Parisian lawyers had also taken to using dramatic poses and tableaux as rhetorical tools to strengthen the presentation of an argument. Nor did the persuasive power of these techniques go unnoticed in high circles: when the dauphin married Marie Antoinette in 1770, the celebrations featured set pieces in which actors froze in prearranged painterly scenes, each marking an important symbolic moment in the festivities. Fashion followed suit, and staging "live paintings" became a popular salon activity in the late eighteenth century from Paris to Naples, especially for women." (page 75)

This book is an important work that defines the cultural history of dance and is an absolute must read for true balletomanes.

Title: Apollo's Angels, A History of Ballet
Author: Jennifer Homans
Publisher: Random House, New York
Category: Non-fiction, history, ballet
Number of pages: 643

Book Review: How Proust can Change Your Life

There are some authors who can take complex ideas and create new depths of understanding with their analysis. And when they can do that while making me laugh, even better. Alain de Botton is the witty and talented author of numerous books including my new all-time favourite How Proust can Change Your Life which was first published in 1997.

Cover of How Proust can Change Your Life

This combination literary analysis and self-help book made me chuckle more than once. Alain de Botton dips into Marcel Proust's life, letters, conversations and books to create a self-help book that is actually life-changing and hilarious. The chapters are divided as follows:
1. How to love life today
2. How to read for yourself
3. How to take your time
4. How to suffer successfully
5. How to express your emotions
6. How to be a good friend
7. How to open your eyes
8. How to be happy in love
9. How to put books down

I'd picked up this book recently, not because of the title but because I recognized the author's name. I had very much enjoyed one of his more recent books  The Architecture of Happiness which was beautifully written. With the recent stresses I've been shouldering of late, there have been days when I just want to crawl under the covers and not come out! On the one day that I was able to actually do that, I took this book with me and it wasn't very long before I was in full belly laugh mode.

Before I read this book, I was under the impression that Proust was a literary giant from the get go. In fact, he was anything but. He was fired from his non-paying post at the Mazarine library after repeatedly failing to report for work. His own family considered him a failure (his father and brother were doctors) and he had to self publish his first book. And even though he was often ill with asthma, he lived life in a grand style, entertaining his friends lavishly. There is much to be learned from Marcel Proust and you don't have to read his books, journals and letters to become wise in a Proustian fashion because the author of How Proust can Change Your Life does it for you in the span of 197 pages.

One of the most hilarious parts is the chapter How to be a Good Friend. The author reveals that while Proust had a great many friends, including several who wrote books about their friendship with Proust (Maurice Duplay, Fernand Gregh and Marie Nordlinger), Proust actually had a more pragmatic and sometimes caustic view of friendship.

There is one incident in particular with his "friend" Fernand Gregh that reveals much. The two were old school chums and Gregh had an "influential position" with the literary paper La Revue de Paris. After Proust published his first collection of stories, Gregh did not review Proust's writing in La Revue. Instead Gregh wrote about "the illustrations, the preface, and the piano pieces that had come with the book and that Proust had had nothing to do with, and then added sarcastic jibes about the connections Proust had used in order to get his work published." And then only a few weeks later, Gregh sent Proust his own book The House of Childhood, "a collection of poems in the light of which Anna de Noailles's work could truly have been compared to Baudelaire's." Instead of taking his revenge, Proust actually wrote Gregh a generous letter of congratulations. "'What I have read struck me as really beautiful, ' Proust told Fernand. 'I know you were hard on my book. But that no doubt was because you thought it bad. For the same reason, finding yours good, I am glad to tell you so and to tell others.' " (pg.129).  The punch line of the story is that among the papers found after Proust's death was a note that Proust had written to Gregh before the one he actually sent. "It contained a far nastier, far less acceptable, but far truer message." (pg.129). The lesson of this story is that the truth about our friends is better suited to a private journal or unsent letter than sharing it with those that inspired such writing!

If you don't have the time, inclination or patience to read Proust's greatest works, or just want an intellectual laugh, spend an afternoon with Alain de Botton and you will be wiser for having done so (and probably have a few more friends to show for it)!


Title: How Proust can Change Your Life
Author: Alain de Botton
Publisher: Vintage International Vintage Books, a division of Random House, 1998. USA
Category: Non-fiction; Marcel Proust, Humour, Literary, Self-help
Number of Pages: 197
Price: US $14, Canada $17.99 paperback

What I'm Reading (and not Reading) This Week

Isabella Blow, one of the fashion world's brightest lights, committed suicide in May 2007. It has been said that her untimely death weighed heavily on Alexander McQueen, who spurned his friend when he sold his label to Gucci. Two books were recently released about Isabella and I chose Blow by Blow which was written by her husband Detmar Blow with Tom Sykes (brother of Vogue editor Plum Sykes). While Isabella had a difficult and painful childhood, what was even more painful was to read the authors spin on it. The tenor of this book is whiny, unimaginative and unpleasant. Detmar manages to insert himself into the story as much as possible, name-dropping on every page and making the story more about him than about Isabella. I could not finish the book even though I read to page 190. I really wanted to like this book but I cannot recommend it.

In stark contrast to the blow-hard style of Blow by Blow is the witty and poignant memoir written by Toronto gallery owner Leo Kamen called Rolling the Bones. 

Like most creative people, Leo Kamen had a difficult childhood, but he writes about his experiences with a degree of detachment and humour, allowing readers to laugh along with him.  His direct style and deft touch with the pen moved the story along and kept me engaged. There is no bitterness or rancour in Leo's memoir and his fighting spirit and joie de vive make me wish I knew him better. His descriptions of people and places are vivid and amusing. For example:

"Mrs. Fluck, our grade eight art teacher, was as thin as a stalk of asparagus. She dressed in long sweaters and grey skirts. Whenever she spoke, she sounded as if she had cotton gauze stuck up her nose. I had vague ideas about what artists were like, but Mrs. Fluck didn't fit the bill. I assumed she went straight home every day after school, wrapped herself up in a housecoat and crawled into a can of sardines for dinner. Only her name, cursed as it was with one too many consonants, gave her a racy reputation she didn't deserve. I never created anything of artistic note in her classes, though towards the end of the year I managed a ceramic lion that bore a striking resemblance to our family cat. I glazed it bright spinach green and placed it on top of our television set at home, where it remained for years." 

Rolling the Bones is available at the Leo Kamen Gallery in Toronto and in e-book format at www.leokamenauthor.com. There also is a contest on Akimbo which runs until December 9th offering three books to lucky winners.

Title: Rolling the Bones, a memoir
Author: Leo Kamen
Publisher: General Karma, Toronto
Category: Non-fiction, Memoir
Number of Pages: 248

Book Review: Fashioning the Bourgeois

If you have a a deep and abiding love of costume history and are able to find this book on the shelves of a library or in a book bin somewhere, don't hesitate to pick it up. It offers a fascinating analysis of the development of fashion in the nineteenth century, incorporating extensive quotations from primary sources of the period. Translated from the French, it is, in parts, dense and scholarly but well written and really quite accessible to both scholars and fashion history aficionados alike.

When this book was first published in 1981 under the original French title Les Dessus et les Dessous de la bourgeoisie, the author Philippe Perrot exploded the myth "that it is futile for historians to study things that seem inconsequential and trivial" like fashion. Most intellectual work on clothing had been to that point done by sociologists or economists. This book lay the groundwork for a body of "cross-disciplinary historical study that is based on the assumption that few, if any, human artifacts are without meaning, in that they are first created by humans and then more-or-less profoundly shape the way we live".  (pg xii of the Preface by Richard Bienvenu).

Fashioning the Bourgeoisie is divided into eleven chapters:
I. Toward a History of Appearances
II. Clothing's Old and New Regimes
III. The Vestimentary Landscape of the Nineteenth Century
IV. Traditional Trades and the Rise of the Nineteenth Century
V. The Department Store and the Spread of Bourgeois Clothing
VI. New Pretentions, New Distinctions
VII. The Imperatives of Propreity
VIII. Deviations from the Norm
IX. Invisible Clothing
X. The Circulation of Fashions
XI. Conclusion

For me, the first chapter - which is on the meaning of clothing - resonated very deeply as I seek to understand the role of fashion in my art practice. Chapter VII on The Imperatives of Propriety is likewise bewitching in the detailed descriptions of the minute requirements for a fashionable woman's wardrobe. Invisible clothing, chapter IX, reveals the history of undergarments, including the corset and crinoline.

If I only owned one book about the 19th century, this would be the one.  Many of the things we take for granted - the availability of ready to wear clothing, the existence of department stores, the emergence of the fashion designer, and differentiation in dress - are rooted in the technical, industrial, commercial and social innovations that happened in the 19th century. I only have this book for a few more days before it has to go back to the stacks of the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto.

P.S. Since writing this post, a reader pointed out that this book is actually available on Amazon. I'm not sure why I didn't check first. The library copy I have is so very old that I assumed it was out of print.