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A Dedicated Follower of Fashion
by Holly Brubach
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Phaidon Press (1999-10-19)
ISBN: 071483887X
EAN: 9780714838878
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 232 pages
Edition: 1ST
SKU: 06659
Condition: Used: Like New
Comments: Some shelf wear on dust jacket.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
This collection of 28 fashion essays previously published in "The New York Times Magazine", "The New Yorker" and "The Atlantic" examines clothing and fashion as part of a larger cultural debate and as a barometer of social and aesthetic change. In essays published during the 1980s and 1990s, the author reflects on a broad range of fashion subjects, from famous designers to designer eyeglasses, from the elegance of a Chanel suit to the decline of elegance itself in the 1990s, from Gianni Versace's legitimisation of vulgarity to the advent of athletic clothing as a fashion uniform. Longer essays from "The New Yorker" and "The Atlantic" are interspersed with 450-word pieces from the "The New York Times Magazine".
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Amazon.com Review
"Once there was a little girl, growing up in a split-level house in suburban Pittsburgh, who loved clothes very much too much, some would say." Twenty-seven articles drawn from 16 years at The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine add up to a very intelligent collection of writing by that little girl who grew up to be fashion journalist Holly Brubach. In lucid, no-bull prose, Brubach compellingly argues that clothes tell us a great deal about who we think we are and how the society around us has shaped those notions. Aptly describing herself as "perhaps slightly cynical but not entirely lacking in the capacity for romance," Brubach appreciates the appeal of the traditional bridal gown (which speaks to "the desire to create something absolute in a world where nothing is certain") but isn't convinced by it ("if weddings reflected all the ambiguities of married life, the bride would wear gray"). She writes entertainingly about models, particularly in a long profile of "self-proclaimed ugly duckling" Kristen McMenamy, without sounding like a gossip columnist; she discerns social significance in Ralph Lauren's vast popularity without sounding like a sociologist. Fashion writing is seldom this stimulating or this much fun. --Wendy Smith
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