American Fashion Accessories

American Fashion Accessories --- Starting in the twentieth century, the American accessory designer looked to Europe and then said, I can do better. In a book commissioned by the Council of Fashion Designers of America and edited by Candy Pratts Price, with writing by Jessica Glasscock and Art Tavee, their achievements are revealed: a century of objects of necessity and desire poured forth to boutiques and department stores across the United States and the world. The forward-thinking American accessory designer, in collusion with America s royalty the Hollywood star and in sync with the unstoppable dominance of a rebellious popular culture, has assembled a cabinet of curiosities, including everything from Adrian s witty Hollywood hats to Ralph Lauren s all-American accoutrement to Madonna s rubber bracelets. It is a tradition that continues today with a stellar group of CFDA designers whose work exemplifies the American accessory.

A Morrissey Memoir? Possibly Very Soon

If you’ve recently found yourself feeling upbeat and optimistic about life, Morrissey, the dour dauphin of rock, may soon put a stop to that: he has announced that he is working on his memoirs. In an interview with the BBC, Morrissey, the former Smiths frontman and symbol of romanticized depression, said he had begun writing an autobiography to communicate directly with his fans and to speak over the filter of the mainstream media. “With every printed interview, there’s lots of misquotes,” Morrissey told the BBC. “Lots of them are really silly and really extreme, which you have to live with the rest of your life. So it’s setting the record straight.” No publisher or release date for the as-yet-untitled memoir has been announced. Morrissey is also working on a new solo album, “Year of Refusal,” scheduled for next year. {via NY Times}

Here's the Story

I wasn't going to read Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice because I am not a big fan of memoirs especially when someone declares on the cover that they are "finding their true voice" but I did read Barry William's book Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg and really enjoyed it. And I heard Maureen in a radio interview the other day and the book sounds interesting. I know she was really into cocaine, etc. Anyway, I am going to read it or listen to - haven't decided which yet. Unfortunately I have been too busy with work and fulfilling other obligations which has left me zero time to read. I have so many books I want to read and so little time! If anyone had read this or plans to read it let me know - as of Friday it was #20 on Amazon.

Bringing Paris Home

Bringing Paris Home invites the reader to re-create the panache of French interior style in an American setting. Author Penny Drue Baird shares her love and knowledge of French history and decorative arts and describes the design elements essential to an elegant French interior—architectural details, furniture, paint and wall covering, fireplaces, lighting, and tabletop settings. A special chapter on shopping offers tips on finding treasures in the famed Marche aux Puces in Paris. Penny Drue Baird's highly engaging text, filled with reminiscences and anecdotes, brings the charm and pleasure of Paris to life. Lavishly illustrated with Parisian scenes and completed interiors by Baird, Bringing Paris Home is an essential resource for capturing the atmosphere of Paris.

Fashion Game Book

Fashion Game Book: A World History of 20th-Century Fashion -- Brainiacs have all the fun in this compendium of fashion intrigue, lore, who s who, and what s what. An entire century of designers, couturiers, and must-have looks parades between the covers. Stump your friends and test your knowledge with questions and answers, quizzes, and matching games. Accompanying photographs illustrate one hundred years of design in vivid color. From Charles James and Claire McCardell to Marc Jacobs and Zac Posen, from jeans and T-shirts to bridal gowns and high heels, the Fashion Game Book offers the essential keys to understanding the art of appearances. With this complete guide, you'll never hear the words, You're out.

Inheriting Beauty

"The women in Inheriting Beauty are serious people, they have careers, they care for their families, and they raise millions of dollars each year for charities, saving the world, as it were, and looking good doing it." (William Norwich)

"The women in this book are lovely. How could the book not be?" (Graydon Carter)

Featuring high-profile figures including Roberta Armani, Delphine Arnault, Amanda Hearst, Vivia Ferragamo, Valeska Hermes, Beatrice and Gaia Trussardi, Jacqui Getty, Veronica Etro, Nabila Khashoggi, Dylan Lauren, Renee Rockefeller, India Hicks, and Carolina Herrera, Inheriting Beauty is the definitive photography book of the world’s most glamorous and beautiful society women. Photographed at their private residences, these women display inimitable elegance and grace set against the backdrop of stunning domestic spaces. Fashion photographer Roger Moenks captures these cosmopolitan figures of fashion and wealth in transcendent yet intimate images, accompanied by brief quotations and childhood photos of each. Through Moenks’ lens, readers are allowed inside exclusive private residences in fashion epicenters such as New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London, Milan, Madrid, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, as well as inside the personal pasts of these famous women.

On Sale now for a great price - $22 @ Barneys (original price was $75!)

Alchemy: A Passion for Jewels

Alchemy: A Passion for Jewels

A Year in Fashion

A Year in Fashion --- From turn-of-the-century corsets to the most recent fashionforward trends, this treasury of photos culled from the Getty Archives encompasses every aspect of the history of fashion. A beautiful gift book formatted as a year s worth of two-page spreads, each day features a stunning photograph facing a detailed caption, a short text, and a memorable quotation, as well as room to note birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates. Immortal designers, their unforgettable creations, the models, legendary film stars, and personalities who bring the clothes to life, and accessories that stand the test of time all contribute to this wide-ranging perspective that will delight and fascinate readers every day, year after year. Note: This is a HUGE book - over 700 pages!!!

Coco Chanel: Three Weeks - 1962

Must add Coco Chanel: Three Weeks - 1962 to my Chanel Library...Enough said.

Vogue Fashion

Vogue Fashion: Over 100 years of Style by Decade and Designer

Comprehensive and lavishly illustrated -- a who's who of fashion.

Published in association with Vogue magazine, Vogue Fashion is the definitive style bible for everyone interested in the past, present and future of fashion. It takes a fresh look at fashion history, charting the evolution from corsets to 21st-century trends.

This stylish book chronicles all the significant designers, developments and movements of more than a hundred years of fashion -- from the 1920s flapper through the war years, from Christian Dior's New Look to the Swinging Sixties, from New Romanticism to punk to postmillenium styles. Among current designers featured are Vera Wang, Roberto Cavalli, Luella Bartley, Zac Posen, Roland Mouret and Viktor and RoIf.

An A to Z section highlights over 250 of the greatest designers of all time -- the men and women who have inspired, created and altered the course of fashion. Illustrated with many eye-catching archival images, Vogue Fashion also features the work of the photographers who have helped immortalize seminal fashion moments.

Vogue Fashion is an informative and inspirational look at how fashion reflects and projects social mores and individual values.

Lulu in Marrakech

Lulu in Marrakech

This title will be released on October 7, 2008. I am really looking forward to this one!

Lulu Sawyer, the heroine of Diane Johnson’s captivating new novel, arrives in Marrakech, Morocco, hoping to rekindle her romance with a worldly Englishman, Ian Drumm. It’s the perfect cover for her assignment with the American CIA: tracing the flow of money from well-heeled donors to radical Islamic groups. While spending her days poolside among Europeans, in villas staffed by local maids in abayas, and her nights at lively dinner parties, Lulu observes the fragile coexistence of two cultures which, if not yet clashing, have begun to show signs of fracture. Beneath the surface of this polite expatriate community lies a more sinister world laced not only with double standards, but with double agents.

As she navigates the complex interface of Islam and the West, Lulu stumbles into unforeseen intrigues: A young Muslim girl, Suma, is hiding from a brother intent on an honor killing; and a beautiful Saudi woman, Gazi, who is vying for Ian’s love, leaves her husband in a desperate bid to escape her repressive society. The more Lulu immerses herself in the workings of Marrakech, the more questions emerge; and when bombs explode, the danger is palpable.

Lulu’s mission ultimately has tragic consequences, but along the way readers will fall in love with this endearing young woman as she improvises her way through the souk, her love life, and her profession. As in her previous novels, Diane Johnson weaves a dazzling tale in the great tradition of works about naive Americans abroad and the laws of unintended consequence, with a new, fascinating assortment of characters, as well as witty, trenchant observations on the manners and morals of a complicated moment in history.