This is a fictionalized telling of the life of Coco Chanel, and it strives to give a complete picture of the legendary designer. I admit to knowing next to nothing about her before I read the book, and it was quite fascinating to read how she managed to rise from poverty to become an icon in fashion. Born Gabrielle Chanel, she and her siblings were split apart after the death of her mother and abandonment of her father. During her schooling by nuns, she […]
“Amory Lorch, Cersei Lannister, Chiswyck, Dunsen, Gregor Clegane, Ilyn Payne, Joffrey Baratheon, Meryn Trant, Forel Polliver, Raff the Sweetling, The Hound, The Tickler, Weese”…
They broke the mold after Dumas wrote “The Count of Monte Cristo.” There will never be a revenge plot as ambitious, as smooth, as Rube Goldbergian, as violent, as tense, or as passionate as this. This is the Ur Revenge Plot. I devoured this book. Inhaled it. And it’s partly because my brain melted a bit after the election, and then I was doggedly rebuilding my spirits with Solnit’s “Hope in the Dark” (TBR) (GET OFF MY BACK), and then it was Thanksgiving, and I […]
Angry people making pretty dresses
It was a fashion battle of the bands. In November 1973, American and French designers went head to head in an ostentatious and outrageous fashion show in Paris. The competition, set up by American fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert with the assistance of French aristocrat Marie-Helene de Rothschild, was held in the Theatre Gabriel in the Chateau de Versailles. It was ostensibly a benefit for charity; the evening would be dinner and a fashion show between five French (Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, […]
Memoir. Fashion. Not for me.
This was the March pick of my book club and I went into it with much trepidation. I don’t read a lot of memoirs, and I don’t care about fashion sooo take what I say with those grains of salt. I did NOT like this book. Here is the paragraph that I have selected to illustrate the reasons I didn’t like it. “Despite all the drama, the photograph he took of Tina lounging on the sofa surrounded by parasols was not modern at all. He […]
“To Be a Godey’s Lady….”
In my continual search for quantitative research on Godey’s Lady’s Book, I came across “Mr. Godey’s Ladies: Being a Mosaic of Fashions and Fancies” by Robert Kunciov, which after the disappointment of the “Sarah Josepha Hale” book, I was leery. I was pleasantly surprised however, by the wonderful reproductions and a few color plates of the original etchings, as well as the author’s selections of excerpts from the original text. He begins with a chronology of the types of fashions, detailing the trends, colors, and […]
a very stylish Cannonball
I’m so thankful to have completed my (very first) Cannonball with a book I thoroughly enjoyed. I am in the fashion “industry” which is fancy talk for “I have a degree in fashion merchandising but really I sell high end dresses to the discerning women of Dallas.” I actually work at a store that sells Diane Von Furstenberg’s line and own a few of her pieces, I’m a fan of her jersey knits and bold prints. I knew she married a prince and came to […]
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