Stitches of Tradition

 

Stitches of Tradition / Marcie Rendon,
illus. by Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley
NY: HarperCollins, c2024.

This Ojibwe story honours the ribbon skirt as a tradition that stitches together generations. A young girl gets her first ribbon skirt thanks to her grandmother's sewing prowess. They measure and cut and create a skirt for her to wear to a baby naming ceremony — and then as she grows older, new ribbon skirts to wear to a Fall Ceremony, a swearing in as her aunt becomes a district judge, and finally to her own coming of age ceremony. As she grows, she learns to help with the sewing and continue the traditions. The text features repeated paragraphs that both ground the story and move it forward, making it an engaging read aloud.

The text and illustrations are both by Ojibwe artists, one from Minnesota and one from Barrie. Together they've created a heart warming book about the connections between generations of women and the traditions that bind families. The text is sprinkled with Ojibwe terms, with a glossary and an author's note at the back, explaining the importance of ribbon skirts. The topic and the colour saturated illustrations make this a visually appealing book for young readers and their elders. It's a gentle story full of love, connection, and sewing! I loved it. 

Dorothy Grant, An Endless Thread

 

Dorothy Grant: An Endless Thread / Dorothy Grant
Victoria, BC: Figure 1 Publishing, c2024.
176 p.

I came across this book in my library's online catalogue; until then I hadn't heard of Dorothy Grant. I'm so glad I found this! Grant is a West Coast Haida designer from what is now Alaska. She began designing in 1989 with her show called Feastwear, which launched her into a very successful career selling first in a boutique, and then via trunk shows and bespoke items.

This book is partly a memoir of her career and partly a look-book of her many pieces and designer lines. There are photos of many Indigenous celebrities and leaders wearing her work, as well as politicians -- one image of Governor General Mary Simon greeting Pope Francis during his visit to apologize for Residential School harms has her wearing a white Dorothy Grant capelet that echoes the Pope's robes, something I found fascinating.

Grant's work has also been collected by museums and galleries. Her designs incorporate traditional Haida motifs as well as garment types and kinds of embellishments like shellwork and embroidery, or traditional spruce root weaving. They play those elements off of modern design to create amazing pieces. 

This book was put together for a retrospective at Haida Gwaii Museum in 2024, so there are also essays by the curator, India Rael Young, and Haida repatriation specialist and museologist Sdahl Ḵ’awaas Lucy Bell, alongside some of Grant's own reflections and memories, and those of her longtime assistant, Haida curator and artist Kwiaahwah Jones. All this, plus the many large photos, make this book a wonderful read, with so much to examine. I really enjoyed it. If you can find a copy, I would recommend it to any fashion lover. 

You can find lots of fascinating information and fashion on Dorothy Grant's website, too,

(Flip through with more images, details and a short video interview with the author can be found on the publisher's website) 

Christian Allaire's The Power of Style

 

The Power of Style / Christian Allaire 
TO: Annick Press, c2021.
96 p.

This is a book aimed at younger readers, the teen demographic. It talks about clothing and style, and how fashion choices can represent identity, signal belonging, and help people express themselves fully. 

Christian Allaire is an Ojibwe fashion writer at Vogue, and he put together this book to show the kinds of fashion, style, and people he didn't see in fashion when he was a teen. He shares Indigenous content -- ribbon skirts/shirts, beading and more -- but also then goes on to cover topics like drag, hijabs, makeup, hair and cosplay, to point out the connections between fashion and social justice. 

This is a photo heavy book, fairly short, so I did find it didn't get into heavy sociological depths -- it is an intro, a survey class if you will, for readers new to these ideas. It's colourful, celebratory, and joyful despite some of the more serious themes. 

I would like to see future volumes more narrowly focused on some of the themes of these chapters, as at times the transitions between chapters felt jumpy because there was so much to cover. But if you have a younger reader interested in cultural identities, gender, and the wider fashion world, this would be a great book to share with them. The many photos really give it visual appeal, almost magazine style, and there are lots of thoughtful threads to follow further. I thought it was very interesting! 

From the Rez to the Runway

From the Rez to the Runway / Christian Allaire 
TO: HarperCollins, c2025.
272 p.

June is National Indigenous History Month in Canada. I shared a few reviews of some books by Indigenous writers on my sewing blog this month, and am going to share them here this week as well. I'll start with this fascinating memoir!

Christian Allaire (author of The Power of Style) has just published a memoir about his rise from Ojibwe teen from Northern Ontario to Vogue fashion writer -- and it's a great read! He's really honest about the trials and tribulations of reaching his goals, recognizing both his own hard work and his luck. As well as the support he received from his family and community. 

He shares how he was always into fashion, reading magazines, watching Fashion Televison & admiring Jeanne Beker, and dressing himself as style-forward as he could with thrift store finds and more. He decided to go into fashion journalism and headed to Toronto, where he found himself one of the few Indigenous students in the journalism program, and certainly in the fashion journalism subset. 

During school he also interned and worked very hard to make connections that might lead to work or further opportunities - he seems to have had endless energy and drive at this time. In this section, he mentions that the professors told him he shouldn't be working, that he should be focusing on academics instead - but that it was all the work he was doing that led to the footholds he was able to get in the industry. This is a great point for many students to think about. 

When he moves to New York to take on some internships, the stories get wilder, until he realizes he needs to take control of his life and manage addictions, so that he can succeed instead of burning out and disappearing. There are lots of entertaining stories during his internship years, including one at a magazine where a roomful of Chanel couture was inadvertently destroyed (not by him), or when a celebrity wore all the designer clothes from a shoot home, and Christian, an intern, had to go get these pieces back to return to the designers in the morning. 

But he also shares stories of how being true to himself and his Indigenous community led to opportunities, especially at Vogue. His pieces on the Santa Fe Indian Market and a variety of Indigenous beaders, designers, jewellers and more were big hits, and he was able to parlay this into the right role at just the right time. And when the book ends, he is giddy, at the peak - he's on the red carpet at the Met Gala, interviewing guests. 

This is an engaging memoir from an important voice in the fashion community right now. I enjoyed the structure and the progression of the book and thought it was well done, incorporating a variety of stories for someone so early into their career. Definitely worth a look!

Heart on my Sleeve

It's already a week into December, and so that means that I'll have to speed up and share some of my outstanding reviews for the year! I have a few books that I've read in the last while and have been meaning to talk about. So there's going to be a batch of random reads shared for the next week or two ;) I'll start with this fashion memoir by a beloved Canadian icon, Jeanne Beker -- both an entertaining and thoughtful book that is just the right topic and the right size to make a great holiday gift for any fashionistas you might know. This review was first shared at my sewing blog, and I hope you'll enjoy it here too. 

Heart on my Sleeve / Jeanne Beker
TO: Simon & Schuster, c2024. 
256 p.

This memoir by Canadian fashion icon Jeanne Beker was a delight. Unlike a traditional memoir, this is structured as a walk through memory, tied to specific pieces of clothing. It highlights how something we wear can carry history and family with it, beyond just being a piece of clothing or an accessory. I really liked this concept and the way it was carried out. She shares an item from her closet, then talks about how/where she got it and the resonances of the piece. Each chapter has a line drawing to illustrate the item, drawn by her own artist daughter. And this book sounds just like she's talking to you - the style is intimate and authentic, highlighting both the glamorous parts of her career and her personal challenges. 

I've read her earlier memoirs (such as Finding Myself in Fashion), and some of the stories here are repeated from those earlier books, but still just as enjoyable. The chapters are short, but cover a range of life moments. From the satchel her parents brought with them when they immigrated to Canada as Holocaust survivors, containing the small amount of family items they still had, to a Chanel dress given to her by Karl Lagerfeld, this book moves from touching and serious to funny & fashion-related. The pace is good and the book shares so many elements of her life, from the personal (her parents, partners and children), to the many famous fashion people she met and befriended in her many years of hosting FashionTelevision. 

There are some great moments included, from the unexpected generosity of Karl Lagerfeld (one of my favourite stories from past books too) to her interviews with fashion greats or music luminaries like Paul McCartney, Keith Richards and more (she worked on MuchMusic before fashion). I really enjoyed the way she started with her wardrobe and let each piece draw out recollections - we all have the experience of knowing just when and where we wore something, and what the meaning of it was to us; some pieces that we've kept forever because of those memories, and some that we could never wear again. 

This covers fashion history, Canadian history (a fun story about Pierre Trudeau, for example), family stories, and traces the development of Canadian media in a way, too. I thought it was a great read, and one I'd recommend to anyone interested in fashion or Canadian women's lives - especially if you were a fan of FashionTelevision in the old days like me ;) 

(review first appeared in slightly different form at FollowingTheThread)

Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon

 

The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon / Sarah Steele
London: Headline, c2020.
416 p.

Looking for a cheery summer read? Try this one -- it's a typical kind of British family saga, in that there are multiple generations involved, family secrets, and a young woman at the heart of it all. But it's also particularly fascinating since it includes two women who are fashion sewists, lots of talk of dresses, fabrics and vintage sewing -- the structure of the book depends on it. 

As the book begins, Flo is at her grandmother's funeral. She was mostly raised by her gentle grandparents, so this is particularly wrenching for her. Also, her marriage is cracking up due to a miscarriage she had in the last year. All the sorrow is getting to be too much for her. 

She decides to stay at her grandmother's house after the funeral for some alone time, and wandering about, looking for an old sewing machine she knows must be there somewhere (Flo is one of the sewists in the book) she stumbles across a box of vintage patterns in her grandmother's bedroom closet. Flo has never seen it before, and as she opens it, she discovers a seamstress named Nancy - who is unknown to her. 

Nancy is from her grandmother's generation; the reader certainly knows a lot more about Nancy Moon than Flo does. It's a long trek for her to find out more, and that is what the book is all about. Flo's husband goes to American for a teaching gig, leaving her at loose ends; with the encouragement of her friend Jem, she decides to travel across Europe, following Nancy's path as much as she can from what she can decipher from the sewing patterns, which have postcards, ticket stubs and fabric tucked into the envelopes. She also decides she is going to duplicate the dresses that Nancy made so that she can wear them on her trip. 

While we don't see or hear much about Flo's process of making the dresses (pretty quickly I'd say) we do follow her to Paris, and then to Venice and beyond, as she tries to replicate Nancy's movements and research where and what and why. Each section, based on a location, moves back and forth between Flo's era and Nancy's, and we get to engage with both of them and their varied experience in different decades. It's also interesting to read it this way, as the reader can follow Flo's investigations into Nancy's story, and see whether she's on the right track or not. 

I enjoyed the descriptions of the dresses that open some of the chapters, and the discussion of style and fabrics and individuals who are highlighted because of the statements they make with their wardrobe choices. The author has included a gallery on her website that shows all the vintage covers of the patterns she discusses in the book, if you want a good look at the outfits that both Nancy and Flo are making. 

There a few moments in this book in which coincidences strain credulity, but overall it was an engaging read with some good character development. And the settings are also quite lovely to read about! If you like books about family secrets and sewing, I'd definitely recommend you give this one a try. 

(review first appeared on Following the Thread)

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

 

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris / Paul Gallico
NY: Bloomsbury, 2022, c1963
320 p.

I've always known about this book but didn't read it until recently; I finally picked it up when this movie cover edition crossed my desk at the library. It's a fairly short book but it was a delight to read. It was published in the 60s but there isn't too much in it that is terribly dated to ruin it, which is always nice. 

Mrs. Harris is a London char-woman who is always positive and down-to-earth. She has her regulars who she cleans for; some are lovely and some are, well, not so much. But when she's cleaning Lady Dant's apartment, she sees the most beautiful thing she's ever seen in her life: a Dior dress. She determines at that moment that she is going to have one, despite how ridiculous it sounds. 

And so she embarks on a savings journey, squirrelling away every extra penny and even going to the track. After two years of determination, she heads to Paris on her quest. But there is so much she doesn't know, like that you don't just walk into Dior like it's Woolworths and pick up a dress off the rack. But fortune favours the bold, and despite barriers in her way, she is put in the path of so many people who decide to help this charming lady. And she passes any help and good fortune she has on to others, too, taking joy in the small things of life and valuing love and connection. 

There are some events near the end that I wished the author had decided differently about, but in the main this is a charming book with a sense of joy and community, leaving you with a definite feel-good vibe. I thought it was full of the delight of Paris and of course of Dior and dressmaking in general -- there are employees and customers of Dior who befriend and help Mrs. Harris, and even a cameo by the great man himself. There are dreamy descriptions of dresses and fabrics and ateliers, as well as of the beautiful streets and markets of Paris. It's so lovely. 

I enjoyed this one so much that I immediately watched the new movie. Unfortunately it doesn't have the same uplifting charm; it highlights a little more of the disappointments and dissatisfactions in the story. It was a good film and Leslie Manville was great as Mrs. Harris, but there is no real 'edge' to the book while there is in the film, and perhaps it was because I had just finished the book two days before the film that I wasn't completely taken with it. I'd say that with this one, as with most book to film experiences, be sure to read the book first if you can ;) This edition also included a second novel, Mrs. Harris Goes to New York, but that one is missable. There is none of the charm of dressmaking and Paris, and it definitely loses something for it, becoming more sentimental than delightful. Stick with Paris and Dior and you'll enjoy the reading!

(this review first appeared on Following The Thread)

A Dress of Violet Taffeta

A Dress of Violet Taffeta / Tessa Arlen
NY: Berkley, c2022.
335 p.

This novel is based on the life of Lady Duff Gordon, otherwise known as British fashion designer Lucille. I've always been interested in this figure, the sister of sensational writer Elinor Glyn, as they have a Canadian connection. Their mother was Canadian, and they both spent some childhood years living in Guelph with their maternal grandparents after their father died. When their mother remarried, they returned to England. 

In any case, this book focuses on Lucy at the moment that her first marriage is breaking down. Her husband James Wallace was a drunk and a philanderer, and he walked out on her and their daughter Esme. She, somewhat scandalously at the time, filed for divorce. But to support herself and her daughter, she started designing and selling dresses from their flat. 

This took off and she kept growing, with her finger on the pulse of fashion -- less restrictive clothing, less corsetry, lower necklines, and skimpy & silky underclothes. She was a hit. The book focuses quite a bit on the business side of things, describing the dresses and clients well. There is also an assistant who is important in the book, who is an amalgamation of two real people in Lucy's life. The character is interesting, so I was disappointed to learn she was a mashup of sorts. 

Lucy also meets a Scottish lord, Cosmo Duff Gordon, who she eventually marries. They end up travelling on the Titanic, and both survived, though they were accused of bribery afterward as the way they survived. They were completely cleared of the accusations in an inquiry, but Cosmo never got over the character assassination during the trial, and they separated a few years later, he retiring back to Scotland and Lucy spending much time in New York where she'd launched a shop. 

The book was mostly interesting, though it did drag on a bit. I enjoyed the descriptions of the fashions and the sewing, as well as the actual running of a business by a woman at this time. The problem with the book is one I often have with these kinds of stories: the reliance on real people as fictional characters. I don't mind real people showing up as side characters, or having a walk-through role. But when they are the main characters and their motives and personal thoughts are created by a fiction writer, it makes me uncomfortable. Where does truth end? It's not always clear what the author is basing their interpretation of a character on. And I found that in this book, the author tries very hard to create a great love affair between Lucy and Cosmo that I just don't think is based in real life. She focuses heavily on romance, perhaps because this book falls into that kind of genre. But I feel like Lucy would have been a much more self-focused, pragmatic person, as shown by the couple's eventual separation as well. 

In any case, I enjoyed the dressmaking parts, found the writing adequate, and was a little unsettled by the heavy use of real people as main characters. Despite the fact that Lady Duff Gordon had an eventful life, full of moments perfect for a novelist, I am not sure that in the end I wouldn't have just preferred a good biography. 

(this review first appeared at Following the Thread)

By Her Own Design

  

By Her Own Design / Piper Huguley
NY: William Morrow, c2022.
367 p.

This is a novel based on the life of Ann Lowe, a Black designer who sewed for high society; she's probably best known for Jacqueline Kennedy's wedding dress. However, 'best' known is still not widely known, and when author Piper Huguley discovered her story she decided to write a novel to spread her story. 

Huguley has written three earlier novels, all romance, and that shows in this book. The first half of the book, as Ann is growing up and experiencing her two marriages (she was first married at 12 years old), is rich and dense with detail and emotion. The genesis of her desire to be a designer, and the development of her sewing skills at the feet of her mother and grandmother, is all laid out, explaining Ann's devotion to her dreams of being an artist. The relationships between Ann and her mother, grandmother, and sister are deeply drawn, followed with the appeal of her two husbands and then her love for her only son -- all these elements are compelling reading. 

Once Ann has shaken off the relationships that are holding her back, though, and sets a course for her new life in New York, the story moves more quickly, skimming over a lot of the many storied years Ann spent running various shops and designing for a multitude of famous people. There are highlights of some of the most dramatic moments of her later life - the Kennedy wedding dress and a closely averted disaster, the loss of family members, a retrospective gala for her in her later years -- and each moment is certainly affecting. But the second half focuses less on her personal life than the beginning. 

Still, I really enjoyed this book. The writing brought this woman to life, and evokes an era in which her success was much more unlikely than otherwise. Huguley captures small things that really illuminate the wider world, and Ann is a great character to follow through the many changes across the 20th century. And even better, if you're intrigued, you can look into more about the real Ann Lowe and see some of her work after you've finished the novel. I think this is a great introduction to her life and story, and would recommend for any fashion lovers. 

(this review first appeared at Following The Thread)

Anna

 

Anna: the biography / Amy Odell
NY: Gallery Books, c2022
447 p.

I've always been intrigued by Anna Wintour, and since this new biography arrived in my library I thought I'd grab it -- it's an authorized bio, and very lengthy, but not gossipy like earlier unauthorized attempts at writing about Wintour. 

It's quite thorough, beginning with Anna Wintour as a child; it talks about her family beginnings and her parents, explaining how both their personalities and their family backgrounds and careers affected Anna's direction. Unlike her siblings, she was more interested in fashion and journalism than university, and once she found her direction she went for it with precise aim. 

It covers all her early jobs and how they shaped her career in magazines, both by her successes and by those places and roles that she wasn't so successful at. It was interesting to see that here was somebody with a distinct vision and a particular personality, who wasn't too good at all the things that people are supposed to do to "pay their dues", but was superb at the role she wanted and finally got - editor of Vogue. 

She found early on that she didn't like many of the elements of a fashion job; going out on site as the producer of a shoot wasn't for her, and many of the daily grind kind of things weren't either. It was running the show and shaping the vision for the magazine that she wanted and was really good at. This kind of focus on doing what she wanted to be doing was interesting to me - how did she keep on with everything else in the meantime? I guess thinking about it as a step toward the ultimate goal. 

Anyhow, the book does talk about her personal relationships to a degree, and does point out some of the missteps she made at other magazines as well as the one or two big errors at Vogue. But it was written by a fashion insider (Odell is the editor of Cosmopolitan.com) and depends heavily on interviews with friends and family, as well as being okayed by Wintour, so there isn't too deep of a discussion of the various criticisms she's faced over the years. 

Along with the personal, there's quite a bit about the workings of the fashion world in general, and about Condé Nast in particular. A reader finds out a lot about the bosses and the work culture at this magazine consortium, and my lord, you'd have to have a thick skin to make it there. I've noticed that Anna Wintour was not front and centre at every runway show in the past while, and wondered about it, but here I discovered that she is no longer the editor of Vogue but the overall content manager for Condé Nast as a whole -- so now it makes sense. 

If you're also interested in fashion journalism and the history of Vogue magazine, and have a fascination with Anna Wintour like I do, this is a good read. Lots to think about here even if it isn't an "exposé" of anything, but more of a putting on record of Wintour's career overall. I feel like it did a good job of tracing her personality and how it developed and worked for her (and against her) in her chosen field. And it also pointed out how many of those traits were only criticized or examined because she was a powerful woman - many men in the same roles were far worse but never got a comment on their leadership at all. Fascinating read about a huge figure in the fashion world, I enjoyed it. 

The Paris Seamstress

 

The Paris Seamstress / Natasha Lester

New York : Forever, 2018

453 p.

I knew I was going to have to read this one at some point -- I couldn't ignore the title or plotline, in which a seamstress from Paris escapes to New York during WWII and starts up a fashion line. However, I am getting a little read out on the WWII stories these days and so had put this one off for a while. 

But this month I finally got to it. It was a pretty good read, although the plethora of "WWII in Paris" novels do start to kind of blend together at some point. In this one there is the added intrigue of famous people who our main character slowly finds out are linked to her in inextricable ways. Lots of family secrets, dashing spies, political intrigue, romance, and of course a lot of sewing.

I liked the balance among all these elements. Estella is a young woman working in a Paris atelier when the war begins, and as things get more dangerous her mother, also a seamstress, basically sends her off to America with the sudden information that Estella had an American father. Estella heads out, still in shock from this revelation, with a suitcase and a sewing machine -- although she hustles down to the port with the sewing machine "banging against her leg" in one hand and the suitcase in the other. I wonder if the author experimented with carrying a 1940s metal machine in a clunky carrying case in one hand for any length of time, when it's described like this. And at one point Estella whips up a glamorous gold evening gown from leftover lamé, about 2 yards worth, in about 2 hours after a long day of work. A real Cinderella moment; I wish I could sew that quickly with such a little bit of fabric! 

But other than those small moments that gave me pause, I found the rest of the book realistic and believable. Estella's story is dramatic, with many strong characters surrounding her - her mother, her two best friends she meets on the boat over to NY, a socialite who looks uncannily like her which leads to a friendship of sorts, and of course her dashing love interest. She also meets many real people, like Elizabeth Hawes (author of Fashion is Spinach) and other fashion leaders of the day. Plus a couple of notorious characters of NY fame; this part was leaned on extensively and I didn't find it convincing at all -- and wonder if there are any descendants of those people who might take issue with the characterizations! 

But like most of these WWII novels lately, the book also has a dual timeline format. Estelle's story starts in 1940, and to me is the much stronger part of the book. We also have a 2015 timeline, in which Estelle's granddaughter Fabienne is discovering her grandmother's secrets just as Estelle's fashion house is being celebrated with an exhibition at the Met in contrast to Estelle herself, whose health is failing due to age. Fabienne thus has to manage the discovery of many secrets on the reader's behalf, including her father's birthright, and the war experiences of her grandmother. Fabienne is, of course, also developing a romance with a tall, dark, handsome, rich and tragic man, even though he's based in NY and she's currently based in Australia. 

Oh, the tangled webs here! Lester is good at creating a complicated, interwoven set of relationships and plot points, which she then resolves neatly by the end. It's a little predictable and the drama is cranked up a little too closely to melodrama once or twice (at least for me). But the settings -- both Paris and lively New York (7th Ave, the Barbizon, the Met and more) are well drawn and the characters are memorable. Overall there is a lot of compelling detail in it, both generally and in more specific sewing areas. I did enjoy it, although I think I'll move on from the genre for a while now. 

Behind The Seams

 

Behind the Seams / Esme Young

I first encountered Esme Young via the Great British Sewing Bee, and had a vague idea that she was a fashion person brought on to the show. I feel some affinity with her as a fellow short person with a similar hairstyle, too ;) 

So when I saw this title I was very interested, and fortunately a friend gave me a copy! I really enjoyed reading this relaxed memoir. It has stories about her life from young girl to present day, but it's not just a chronological progression. It covers various times in more detail; the highlights are her years running Swanky Modes, a design house/storefront with 3 friends -- they were one of the first to use Lycra as a fashion fabric, not just for workout gear -- as well as her work with Central St Martins as a pattern cutter instructor. And of course, there are the years of the Great British Sewing Bee! 

The style is quite relaxed and fun; if you are familiar with her from the Sewing Bee, you'll recognize her 'voice' as it is the same in her writing. She has some great anecdotes from her time in the fashionable crowd in London, especially in the years of Swanky Modes - like meeting David Bowie, or even the small, homely details of how she built relationships with the children of her business partners. I found this different from other fashion memoirs in that she had a different relationship to fashion -- she wasn't a trained designer trying to make it in couture, she was a rather down to earth pattern maker who decided to start a boutique with three of her friends and just had fun with it.  

And sewists will enjoy reading about her pattern work and the way it shaped her career. At Central St Martins she mentored designer Ashish Gupta, and talks about their work together even now -- one of her most memorable outfits on the Bee was a sequined granny square pattern jacket made by Ashish so it all makes sense! I enjoyed this story of a woman who followed her passions and did it all on her own. She talks about work as a key element of her life, and when she was asked to be on the Bee she seemed surprised that she was invited to audition; there was no snobbiness or sense that she was assured anything due to her history or connections. And she seems happy with this new gig - as she says, she wants (and needs) to work until she dies, and this is just one more new experience for her that has brought opportunity. 

This was an enjoyable read. The tone felt very natural and entertaining, and I learned quite a bit about her life, and fashion in England over the past few decades. There's nothing too dark in it, and you get a sense of her habit of just getting on with things. Recommended for any fan of English fashion personalities or the Great British Sewing Bee! 

The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle

 

The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle / Jennifer Ryan
NY: Ballantine Books, c2022.
411 p.

This was a very enjoyable novel, set on the home front in England, mid-WWII. It follows the fortunes of three women as they adjust to the new patterns of life in their small village. 

Grace Carlisle is the vicar's daughter, and she's trying to fix her deceased mother's wedding dress for her upcoming nuptials. But she's as uncertain about the wedding as she is about the repairs, especially after she runs into Hugh Westcott, a childhood friend and member of the local aristocracy who she hasn't seen in years.

Cressida Westcott is a successful, London based fashion designer who left the village when she was young and had no intentions ever to return. But her fashion house and her home have both just been destroyed in the Blitz -- she had a narrow escape. She has nowhere left to turn other than her old home. Her nephew Hugh is now in charge, and she can only hope that both Hugh and her niece Violet are more welcoming than her late brother was. 

Meanwhile, Violet is excited by the idea of her famous aunt coming to live with them -- but shortly after Cressida arrives, spoiled Violet receives a conscription letter. She's off to train for a position in the women's corps, but doesn't know what she will end up doing. 

The three women learn to be more empathetic, build their relationships, create meaningful activity that draws the women of the village together, and of course, find true love. 

It was a straightforward story with not too many surprises. It was pretty easy to see the direction that the story was taking as it went along, but it was an enjoyable read with interesting characters. When they start the Wedding Dress Sewing Circle, spurred on by Cressida's arrival and Grace's need for help from the ladies of the already existing sewing group, it livens up the village and allows for some great sewing talk. As mentioned in the notes to this book, and in the last book I read, Fashion on the Ration,  a Wedding Dress lending circle was actually a real thing in the war, started by Barbara Cartland (yes, the romance novelist) who was upset to think that women in the services would have to marry in their ugly uniforms. There is a lot of fascinating historical content in this book, which was so intriguing. 

The parts I was most drawn to were the fashion bits; I thought they were the most unique parts of the story, and of course the whole idea of clothing availability and design in wartime is of interest to me -- I just read a whole book about it! There is info about the clothes rationing schemes rolled into the story quite naturally, and Cressida, as a designer, is asked to participate in the (real life) design challenge given to a handful of fashion designers by the British government when they were trying to figure out how to make Utility clothing more appealing. The scenes at the challenge event were fun to read, especially since Grace was one of Cressida's models -- it was entertaining to see our characters inserted into an historical moment. 

And there was also a bit of historical detail shared at the top of each chapter; the explanation of the design requirements for a piece of Utility clothing was my favourite bit.

If you enjoy a sweet historical romance with a Happy Ever After and lots of period colour, as well as a lot of fascinating fashion tidbits, I'd recommend this read. 

Clothes-Pegs

 

Clothes-Pegs / Susan Scarlett
London: Dean Street Press, 2022, c1939.
206 p.

For December I'm going to share some of the lighter reads I've been exploring over the last while - this week it's a few of the fashion/sewing related ones that I've already shared over on my sewing blog, Following The Thread. 

I'm starting with a vintage read! This is a reprint of the first romance by Susan Scarlett, the pen name of well known author Noel Streatfield. She wrote a dozen romances under this name, and I was obviously drawn to this one! 

It's the story of Annabel Brown, a nice girl from a middle class English family who works as a seamstress at Bertna's, a higher end fashion house, to help with family finances. Annabel is also young, slender and lovely, which works in her favour when one of the mannequins (models) from downstairs quits, and the owner needs a quick substitution. She decides to pull Annabel from the sewing room to the front lines, so to speak, and gives her a quick training to become of one of the four models showing off new collections. 

Two of these models are catty, the other is fairly mysterious but kind to Annabel. And on one of Annabel's first turns in her new job, she sees wealthy Lord David de Bett in the audience and falls for him at first sight. Of course she also catches his eye, despite the fact that he's there with the Honourable Octavia Glaye, who isn't very honourable in real life; she is really quite awful! This scene reminds me a little of the beginning of The Grace Kelly Dress by Brenda Janowitz. 

A cross-class romance ensues, with ups and downs and misunderstandings, as in all good romance novels. But Annabel's goodness overcomes class lines, as well as David's obsession with the madonna/whore complex. He is the sticking point in this book for me; he's not good enough for Annabel, jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions about Annabel near the end and only relenting when he finds out the truth accidentally from someone else. It felt a little icky for a reader of today, really. Other than his character, though, this story was charming - the Brown family is the heart of it and Annabel's work as a seamstress and as a mannequin are both frothy with clothing description and the way clothes make a woman feel. Bertna's was a delight to read about and while the romance felt a little clunky, the rest of it - especially the family interactions - was enjoyable and engaging. Definitely worth a look. I found this one through my library's online collection so perhaps you will be able to as well! 

The Grace Kelly Dress

 

The Grace Kelly Dress / Brenda Janowitz
NY: Graydon House, c2020
336 p.

I've never read Brenda Janowitz before, and the blurb by Emily Giffin on the front didn't bode well since I don't usually like her books. But the dress element of this book convinced me to pick it up. And I am glad I did! It was a poignant and enjoyable story of three generations of women, and one dress. 

The story moves between three women: Rose in 1958 who is creating The Dress, Joanie in 1982 who wore it after her mother did, and Rocky in 2020 who is getting married but doesn't want to wear her mother's dress. 

The chapters are all short, and each woman is quite different so it's easy to keep them sorted. Also, Rose is a seamstress in Paris, Joanie is a college student, and Rocky is a contemporary software developer, so they're distinct in their interests, surroundings and behaviours, too. 

Of course I loved Rose and all the time spent in Madame Michel's Parisien atelier, where she works. Rose is very skilled, she loves sewing and designing; her focus and her sketches catch the eye of Julian, Madame Michel's assistant, and is called upon to assist him in keeping the atelier running after the unexpected death of Madame Michel, which he is trying to keep a secret. Lots of drama! 

Joan is a young college student, a sorority member and recently engaged to a fraternity dude, but she's starting to question a lot about her life. She tries very, very hard to be 'good' to make up for the loss of her older sister, who died at age twenty. This character was a little weak to me, because in parts it felt like she was living more in the late 60s than the early 80s, with her sorority and her pearls and her innocence. But she certainly experiences some of the early 80s when she leaves campus in search of the truth about her sister. 

Rocky is a bit rough around the edges, unlike her sultry sister Amanda. She likes logic and order and things being straightforward. She wants a simple wedding, and isn't thrilled about wearing the elaborate Grace Kelly dress from her mother -- but doesn't want to hurt her mother by turning it down, either. There are a bunch more side stories in Rocky's chapters; Amanda is gay and longing for the last girlfriend she ditched, Rocky's fiancé is South Korean but was adopted by a Jewish family and he's now searching for his birth mother, there are mother issues between Rocky and Joan. 

But through all three of the stories, the dress, and all the details of making it, shine through. I loved how Rose takes the inspiration from the Grace Kelly wedding dress that was the ideal in 1958 and updates it for a younger client. She talks about details like shortening sleeves, updating necklines, adding lace motifs, and about how to construct a dress like this (in separate parts, skirt held up with underpinnings and cummerbund to cover the bodice and skirt join. As a sewist, a reader can picture this and understand how it makes a gown like this work on the body).

Joanie adapts the dress to her taste in the 80s (think poofy Princess Diana sleeves) and Rocky eventually comes to see how she can make it work for her, too. (no spoilers...) It ends with a fairytale-like omniscient narrator telling the story of the dress' future, and it works, and it's touching and sweet. 

If you like stories that move between characters, and don't mind the sentimentality of a book centred around love and weddings, and of course you like to read about sewing, give this one a try. You can't go into it cynically or it just won't work, but if you're looking for a gentle read with some great sewing content and an interesting set-up, you might just find it's exactly what you need. 

(this review was first published at Following The Thread)

The Last Collection

 

The Last Collection / Jeanne Mackin
New York, NY : Berkley, 2019
340 p.

Another novel with fashion at its heart, this one was a clear winner for me. Lily Sutter is a young widow, and a teacher who leaves her post when her brother Charlie writes that he needs her in Paris. She's also an artist, and her eager rediscovery of Paris in 1938 is full of colour and painting and fashion...alongside the looming threat of war. 

She arrives in Paris to find that her charming brother wants to offer her a dress by Chanel, but she prefers the more artistic flair of Schiaparelli. Charlie's married girlfriend Ania, a rich society wife, follows Lily's lead and starts wearing the upstart designer's clothing, putting Lily in the middle of a rivalry between Chanel and Schiaparelli. This rivalry is not only about their differing views of the role of fashion, but is exacerbated by their views on prewar politics. 

I'm not always impressed by books that take real life people as characters; I find it akin to stealing someone's life in many cases. But here the two designers, while important to the story, don't seem to act outside of their historically known characters. And the author focuses much more on Lily's journey and how these two people are important to her story than on trying to recreate the internal lives of these real people. And I found that it worked because of this focus.

The emotional arc of the story is all Lily -- the early loss of her husband, her relationship to her brother, the role she plays when she gets a job at Schiaparelli's salon and also interacts with Chanel, and her own burgeoning love affair that is complicated by the presence of Nazis in France. The war is a key part of the book, but I still wouldn't call this a War Story. It's a different angle on this time in history, as Lily, an American, sees things from the outside. 

I really enjoyed the solid historical context of this story, as well as the accomplished writing. Mackin tells this story without sentimentalizing or exaggerating historical facts. She also represents the nuance in the decisions that both designers made at the start of the war, and the unexpected effects of their decisions on others -- for example, that Chanel closed up overnight to remove to a hotel with her German officer lover for the duration of the war, which immediately put 200 employees out of work at a difficult time. That was one aspect I hadn't immediately considered, being more focused on Chanel's association with the Germans in the war. 

The strength of the book lies in the focus on Lily's storyline; it has the emotional weight and complexity to stand on its own. The author could have invented designers or even had Lily working at something else and it still would have worked without the 'celebrity' aspect. Although I must say I really liked that part of things. Lily, as an artist, sees in colour and feeling, and her impressions of the fashions and the fabrics were satisfying to read. She refers to colours as leitmotifs in both designers' lives (Schiaparelli is synonymous with Shocking Pink while Chanel is known for her Little Black Dress, for example), and the real collections of both designers in these years are discussed and described. Lily also ties colour to emotion, reflecting her own interactions with Paris and her new life. There is a lot of engaging description of outfits, designs and even Lily's own paintings, with colour and line at the forefront. 

While there are many serious and difficult moments in this book, it ends with a satisfying resolution that won't leave you depressed for days -- it's not that kind of WWII novel. It's a smart, fashionable story with a strong emotional heart. If you have someone in your life who enjoys well structured historical fiction and loves fashion and/or art, I'd highly recommend this as a perfect holiday gift. 

(this review first appeared at FollowingTheThread)