Basic Books
The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish
The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish
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A tribute to a time when style -- and maybe even life -- felt more straightforward, and however arbitrary, there were definitive answers. -- Sadie Stein, Paris Review As a glance down any street in America quickly reveals, American women have forgotten how to dress. We lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally and beautifully. In The Lost Art of Dress, historian and dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals that this wasn't always true.
In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women -- the so-called Dress Doctors -- taught American women that knowledge, not money, was key to a beautiful wardrobe. They empowered women to design, make, and choose clothing for both the workplace and the home. Armed with the Dress Doctors' simple design principles -- harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis -- modern American women from all classes learned to dress for all occasions in ways that made them confident, engaged members of society. A captivating and beautifully illustrated look at the world of the Dress Doctors, The Lost Art of Dress introduces a new audience to their timeless rules of fashion and beauty -- rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.
Author: Linda Przybyszewski
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 04/29/2014
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.70h x 6.40w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9780465036714
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/03/2014
Library Journal 03/15/2014 pg. 118
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2014
New York Times Book Review 06/01/2014 pg. 29
New Yorker (The) 07/07/2014 pg. 87
Choice 10/01/2014 pg. 330
In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women -- the so-called Dress Doctors -- taught American women that knowledge, not money, was key to a beautiful wardrobe. They empowered women to design, make, and choose clothing for both the workplace and the home. Armed with the Dress Doctors' simple design principles -- harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis -- modern American women from all classes learned to dress for all occasions in ways that made them confident, engaged members of society. A captivating and beautifully illustrated look at the world of the Dress Doctors, The Lost Art of Dress introduces a new audience to their timeless rules of fashion and beauty -- rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.
Author: Linda Przybyszewski
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 04/29/2014
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.70h x 6.40w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9780465036714
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/03/2014
Library Journal 03/15/2014 pg. 118
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2014
New York Times Book Review 06/01/2014 pg. 29
New Yorker (The) 07/07/2014 pg. 87
Choice 10/01/2014 pg. 330
About the Author
Linda Przybyszewski is an associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. The author of The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan, the editor of Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911, as well as a prize-winning dressmaker, she lives in South Bend, Indiana.
