THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities—famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives. It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than fifty questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations. Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, or function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us. Women in Clothes embraces the complexity of women’s style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always thoughtful impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed.

This book charts the novel's vibrant engagement with clothes, examining how fiction revises and reshapes material objects within its pages.

An illustrated history of World War II-era women’s fashions, featuring ladies from all nations involved in conflict. What would you wear to war? How would you dress for a winter mission in the open cockpit of a Russian bomber plane? At a fashion show in Occupied Paris? Singing in Harlem, or on fire watch in Tokyo? Women’s Lives and Clothes in WW2 is a unique, illustrated insight into the experiences of women worldwide during World War II and its aftermath. The history of ten tumultuous years is reflected in clothes, fashion, accessories, and uniforms. As housewives, fighters, fashion designers, or spies, women dressed the part when they took up their wartime roles. Attractive to a general reader as well as a specialist, Women’s Lives and Clothes in WW2 focuses on the experiences of British women, then expands to encompass every continent affected by war. Woven through all cultures and countries are common threads of service, survival, resistance, and emotion. Historian Lucy Adlington draws on interviews with wartime women, as well as her own archives and costume collection. Well-known names and famous exploits are featured—alongside many never-before-told stories of quiet heroism. You’ll indulge in luxury fashion, bridal ensembles, and enticing lingerie, as well as thrifty make-do-and-mend. You’ll learn which essential garments to wear when enduring a bomb raid and how a few scraps of clothing will keep you feeling human in a concentration camp. Women's Lives and Clothes in WW2 is richly illustrated throughout, with many previously unpublished photographs, 1940s costumes, and fabulous fashion images. History has never been better dressed.

Originally published: New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1968.

"Drawn from academic studies, hundreds of interviews with fashion designers, and years of covering the industry from the inside, Toby Fischer-Mirkin's insightful analyses of the ins and outs of dressing will help you perfect a more timeless sense of dress - or cultivate an entirely new image." "She asserts that the key to the powerful use of clothing begins with understanding the numerous complex and fundamental motives that influence the way we dress and how personal style reflects our sense of self. She explores the distinct symbolism of clothing - how stiff, constructed collars in business signify seriousness, reliability, and strength, while loose, unconstructed collars convey a more easygoing attitude. She interprets fashion fads and trends such as the androgynous look and status symbols. And with great attention to detail, Fischer-Mirkin examines the psychological implications of clothes and accessories, from shoes to hats. She also offers situation-specific best choices for job interviews and social occasions."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Fashion is ever-changing, and while some styles mark a dramatic departure from the past, many exhibit subtle differences from year to year that are not always easily identifiable. With overviews of each key period and detailed illustrations for each new style, How to Read a Dress is an authoritative visual guide to women's fashion across five centuries. Each entry includes annotated color images of historical garments, outlining important features and highlighting how styles have developed over time, whether in shape, fabric choice, trimming, or undergarments. Readers will learn how garments were constructed and where their inspiration stemmed from at key points in history – as well as how dresses have varied in type, cut, detailing and popularity according to the occasion and the class, age and social status of the wearer. This lavishly illustrated book is the ideal tool for anyone who has ever wanted to know their cartridge pleats from their Récamier ruffles. Equipping the reader with all the information they need to 'read' a dress, this is the ultimate guide for students, researchers, and anyone interested in historical fashion.

A brilliant portrayal of finding a beautiful life by one of Canada's most exciting literary talents, now available as an Anansi Book Club edition featuring discussion questions. How Should a Person Be? is an unabashedly honest and hilarious tour through the unknowable pieces of one woman’s heart and mind, an irresistible torn-from-life book about friendship, art, sex, and love. Part literary novel, part self-help manual, and part racy confessional, it is a fearless exploration into the way we live now by one of the most highly inventive and thoughtful young writers working today.

This text sets out to fill a gap in the existing literature on the ambivalence of fashion and dress by drawing on a wide range of women's experiences with their wardrobes, and providing empirical data.

From the acclaimed novelist of The Folded Clock and founding editor of The Believer magazine comes a "sharp-eyed, sardonic, hilarious" novel (The New York Times Book Review) about grief, female rivalry, and the furious power of a daughter’s love. Julia Severn is a talented student at an elite institute for psychics. When Julia’s mentor, the legendary Madame Ackerman, grows jealous of her protégée’s talents, she subjects Julia to the painful humiliation of reliving her mother’s suicide . . . and then launches a desperate psychic attack. But Julia’s gifts, though a threat to her teacher, prove an asset to others. Soon she’s recruited to track down a missing person who might have a connection to her mother. As Julia sifts through ghosts and astral clues, everything she thought she knew about her mother is called into question, and she discovers that her ability to know the minds of others—including her own—goes far deeper than she ever imagined.

Here is the straight-up dope on how to make your own clothing. With or without patterns, machines, or fancy materials—anyone can do it! Got some old clothes that you love and that fit well? Use them as patterns for new ones. Want something new and spectacular, something that fits right along where your head is moving? Cut up, remodel, add on, and let your old stuff evolve! Readers will embrace the step-by-step illustrations, clear and encouraging prose, and timeless collection of clothes—from skirts and pants to dresses, a waistcoat, and even a teeny-weeny bikini. The Illustrated Hassle-Free Make Your Own Clothes Book promises to be both an indispensable resource and a much-noticed collectible on every hipster’s bookshelf.