What I've Been Reading

Updated: now with mini-reviews

Here are the latest fashion books that I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying!


Pierre Cardin: Fifty Years of Fashion and Design by Elisabeth Längle

This book was very interesting because it has many photographs of his clothes over the years where you see his evolution, real innovation, and sometimes magical flights of fancy that most people would never wear out in public. Especially some of the 1970s menswear!


Claire McCardell: Redefining Modernism by Kohle Yohannan

A great book about this creative woman who advocated clothes that woman could be comfortable in. Her clothes had elegant designs and fine fabrics, but there was no sense of one-upmanship in her clothes. Practical and pretty is a good description, except for the shocking and seductive jersey bathing suits she designed.


A Thousand Days of Magic by Oleg Cassini

I love this book! Though I have to admit the sketches were sometimes more appealing than the finished garments, but I believe that could be attributed to the fact that Jackie Kennedy stipulated to Mr. Cassini that she did not want her clothes to be too body hugging. So, unlike the sketches, the bodices' of the completed garments are not as closely fitted, the waists are not cinched enough, and the fabrics are sometimes stiff looking. However, they are all lovely and this book presents and discusses 108 outfits during her three years in the White House.

Emma Peel!
Swinging Sixties by Christopher Breward, David Gilbert and Jenny Lister

My least favorite of the books, but only because it was not as focused on fashion as it was on the entire sixties experience in youth culture, underground paper media, and music. But a fine book overall.