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The Thoughtful Dresser (2009)

by Linda Grant(Favorite Author)

3.41 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1844085562 (ISBN13: 9781844085569)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Virago Press (UK)

review 1: Linda Grant is a very good writer. She is vivid and conversational, smart and funny. It is a pleasure reading her prose. Her book on fashion is problematic, however. It might be how it is structured, a series of personal aperçus into why fashion is not frivolous but actually deeply important, especially to the wearer. She Is something of fashion junky herself and writes often about herself, her fashion obsessions, as well as her upbringing as the daughter of middle class Jews for whom appearances were all important. It is easy tore late to her. She wrote a blog on the topic and the book is an outgrowth. And this is part of the problem. It reads sometimes as scattershot, what is typical of blogs. But then there is her fascination with Catherine Hill of Toronto, the former ... moreowner of Chez Catherine, the luxury fashion store that has since closed its doors. Catherine Hill is an indomitable figure with a terrible story to tell, being a tattooed survivor of Auschwitz. She once had to do hard labour naked, with other shaved and shivering women, and so she knows deeply how being without clothes brutalizes and dehumanizes. But this really ought to be the subject of another book. To mix Nazi extermination policies in with a book that really wants to make it okay to covet over-priced Hermes bags, is to make the book ultimately a questionable piece of work. It is worth reading, however. It underscores that dressing well can be a panacea for many of life's ills. But perhaps, and getting back to the structuring issue, if she had started with Catherine Hill, told her story and then segued into why and how dressing, and not just fashion, is important, then it might have felt less like a chatty book that suddenly felt it needed to add a dollop of gravitas to stiffen its crinolines, and more like a book with a defined purpose that needs no dressing up to make it feel relevant.
review 2: When I read a book like this, I wish I hadn't given out 5 stars so readily in the past, so it would mean more. I was riveted by Linda Grant's (no relative) explanations and her defense of fashion. I'd been brought up to think it didn't matter, that working hard and doing good were about the only things that counted, but one can miss a lot of pleasure that way. The stories of Catherine Hill, Holocaust survivor inspire me. less

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