A Life in Frocks

Author: Kelly Doust
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1742663052
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
A Life in Frocks is about the 'divine obsession' - a woman's love for clothes. In particular, it is a personal, entertaining, joyousùand seductiveùexploration of the significance of clothes, filtered through one woman's life-long sartorial infatuation. For as long as she can remember, Kelly Doust has been passionate about clothes. They are her first, and most enduring, love affair to date. Like the vast majority of women, she adores the playfulness of fashion and its endless ability to transform. She loves the ritual and drama of getting dressed, assuming different identities in different outfits and exploring the many facets of her personality. She buys far too many glossy magazines, and puzzles over how she can spend half her life shopping and yet still find herself with nothing to wear. Over the years, clothes have comforted her, given her confidence, lured lovers, made her invisible, secured jobs, aged her and given back her youth. And yes, they have betrayed her. A beautifully illustrated mix of memoir, philosophies and fantasies, A Life in Frocks is a book for those who love clothes and find fashion beguiling, fickle and fabulous.

Famous Frocks: The Little Black Dress

Author: Dolin Bliss O'Shea
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452130442
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
“[A] stylishly presented collection of sewing patterns for 10 LBDs; O’Shea also shows how each pattern can be adapted to another look.” —Publishers Weekly Coco Chanel, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly . . . Each of these women had an influential take on the most classic wardrobe staple of all: the Little Black Dress. In this chic sewing book, patternmaker Dolin Bliss O’Shea pulls inspiration from famous LBDs throughout history—including Mary Quant’s mod mini, a classic wrap dress worn by Liza Minnelli, Princess Diana’s smart A-line, and more—and offers patterns for reinterpreted versions that are perfectly stylish. Including ten full dress patterns with sewing variations to make twenty garments in all, a primer on sewing techniques, vintage photographs of style icons, and full-color shots of the finished pieces, this book has everything fashionistas need to bring timeless style right into their closets. “Features famous little black dresses over the decades. Learn how to sew up Audrey Hepburn’s Sabrina Dress or Kate Moss’ sexy lace dress of the millennium . . . The patterns in this book can take you through the work week to weekend cocktail parties!” —Coquette

The Secret Lives of Dresses

Author: Erin McKean
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0446575151
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
When her grandmother has a stroke, Dora returns to the small town where she grew up to take over her family's vintage clothing store -- and meets a handsome contractor. Is he interested in Dora? Or is he working from a different blueprint? Dora has always taken the path of least resistance. She went to the college that offered her a scholarship, majoring in "vagueness studies," and wears whatever shows the least dirt. She falls into a job at the college coffee shop and has a crush on her flirty boss, Gary. But just when she's about to test Gary's feelings, Mimi, the grandmother who raised her, suffers a stroke. Dora rushes back to Forsyth, NC, and finds herself running her grandmother's vintage clothing store while her grandmother recovers -- andmeets Mimi's adorable contractor, Conrad. The store has always been a fixture in Dora's life; though she grew up more of a jeans-and-sweatshirt kind of girl, before she even knew how to write, Mimi taught her that a vintage 1920s dress could lift a woman's spirit. But why has Mimi started writing down -- and giving away -- stories of the dresses in her shop? Amidst personal and professional turmoil, can Dora can trade her boring clothes for vintage glamour and her boring life for one she actually wants?

The Way We Wore

Author: Daphne Selfe
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 144729193X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
HISTORY OF FASHION. Daphne Selfe has been photographed by Mario Testino, Nick Knight and David Bailey. She has modelled for Dolce and Gabbana, Red or Dead and high-street chains such as TK Maxx, and regularly appears in newspaper fashion pages and glossy magazines. She is one of Britain's most in-demand supermodels and has worked non-stop for almost twenty years. But what makes her really rather extraordinary is that she is now in her late eighties. Daphne grew up in an age when dresses were lovingly run up for you by your mother, when needlework for even the most basic outfit was an art form, and when a new Simplicity Pattern was almost more exciting than a new dance tune. Perhaps as a result, she has had a lifelong love affair with clothes and fashion. The Way We Wore is a heart-warming account of that love affair, taking readers from the organdie party frocks of a 1930s childhood to the pages of Vogue.

Jacob's New Dress

Author: Sarah Hoffman
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
ISBN: 0807563749
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34

Book Description
One of 10 Best Indie Picture Books of 2014, ForeWord Reviews Runner-Up, 2014 New England Book Festival: Children's Books 2014 Distinguished List of the Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California CCBC Choices 2015 An affirming story about gender nonconformity. Jacob loves playing dress-up, when he can be anything he wants to be. Some kids at school say he can't wear "girl" clothes, but Jacob wants to wear a dress to school. Can he convince his parents to let him wear what he wants? This heartwarming story speaks to the unique challenges faced by children who don't identify with traditional gender roles.

Carefree Clothes for Girls

Author: Junko Okawa
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 1590307178
Category : Dressmaking
Languages : en
Pages : 98

Book Description
Full of unhemmed edges, ruffles, buttons, and personality, the garments presented in this book offer whimsical charm and practical playfulness. Intended for girls ages four to seven, each garment is presented in four sizes so readers can find the perfect fit for their own little girl. Full-color photos throughout.

Frock Off

Author: M. S. Jo Dibblee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780992140465
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
With parents tormented by secrets, guilt, and shame, Jo Dibblee quickly learned to protect herself. Faced with her parents' alcoholism, drug abuse, and depression, along with the sexual assault and stalking of an "upstanding" foster parent, Jo began, early in life, to use a coping strategy she now calls frocking. With humor and hope, Jo shares the harrowing rollercoaster of her life story and gives the low-down on frocking-how she learned it and used it to survive, how she found it holding her back and what she had to do to, once and for all, Frock Off. Despite harsh truths, brushes with death and agonizing betrayals, Jo's heart shines through these pages, offering promise, wisdom and inspiration to any reader who has learned to hide and longs to be free.

Clothing and Landscape in Victorian England

Author: Rachel Worth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786733455
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description
In the context of this rapidly changing world, Rachel Worth explores the ways in which the clothing of the rural working classes was represented visually in paintings and photographs and by the literary sources of documentary, autobiography and fiction, as well as by the particular pattern of survival and collection by museums of garments of rural provenance. Rachel Worth explores ways in which clothing and how it is represented throws light on wider social and cultural aspects of society, as well as how 'traditional' styles of dress, like men's smock-frocks or women's sun-bonnets, came to be replaced by 'fashion'. Her compelling study, with black & white and colour illustrations, both adds a broader dimension to the history of dress by considering it within the social and cultural context of its time and discusses how clothing enriches our understanding of the social history of the Victorian period.

Famous Frocks

Author: Sara Alm
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 9780811877916
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Audrey Hepburn, Jackie O., Marilyn Monroe. . . these women wore stylish dresses that still make us swoon today. Famous Frocks provides everything needed to recreate these iconic looks by hand including Audrey s little black dress, Marilyn s poster-classic white halter, Madonna s sexy Like a Virgin number, and more. Vintage photos of the original look alongside beautiful color illustrations of the finished projects offer inspiration, while how-to illustrations break down each step so sewers of all skill levels can follow along. Packaged in an attractive lay-flat hardcover and featuring full-sized patterns for 10 classic dresses updated to be stylish for today (plus 10 variants for a full 20 new looks), this entirely original sewing book is a treat for lovers of vintage style.

The Hundred Dresses

Author: Eleanor Estes
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780152052607
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
Eleanor Estes's The Hundred Dresses won a Newbery Honor in 1945 and has never been out of print since. At the heart of the story is Wanda Petronski, a Polish girl in a Connecticut school who is ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the same faded blue dress every day. Wanda claims she has one hundred dresses at home, but everyone knows she doesn't and bullies her mercilessly. The class feels terrible when Wanda is pulled out of the school, but by that time it's too late for apologies. Maddie, one of Wanda's classmates, ultimately decides that she is "never going to stand by and say nothing again." This powerful, timeless story has been reissued with a new letter from the author's daughter Helena Estes, and with the Caldecott artist Louis Slobodkin's original artwork in beautifully restored color.