The Thoughtful Dresser: The Art of Adornment, the Pleasures of Shopping, and Why Clothes Matter

This book provided me the words to describe why I keep clothes, not just the ones I wear, the one that mean something to me. The suit from Barney's that I used to wear to work, the onesie my son wore all the time, the little black dress that used to be my mother's that I wore to countless parties and dates. These clothes remind me of who I was, and how my son's chubby squirming body used to feel inside his onsie. This book made me think about clothes- how they make us feel, how we can use them to reinvent ourselves, and how they tell the world and us who we are. This was a great, thought provoking book and easy read, and entertaining.

I am still reading this book. However, it is very funny, interesting, true and not too, too serious. It is one of my summer reads.

Linda Grant's book is a wonderful trip about clothing our bodies. The title really says it all. If you enjoy shopping and wearing clothes, have a "shoe thing" or some other fixation adorning your body, you'll love this book. I was a model in the 60's and saw the inception of the mini skirt, lived through the classic clothes, the trendy clothes, the Pucci's, the Chanel's(my forever fave), the Rudi Gernreich, Halston, John Kloss, the Kelly bag,...the list is endless. What fun! The memories that pop up are wonderful. My older sisters had the classic type of clothes, cashmere sweater sets, pearls. Stockings with seams, garter belts. I myself has a "poodle skirt" with lots of crinolines underneath. The fuller, the better. If you're a fashionista, this will give you some history so you get a feel for the evolution of fashion. What a trip! I will be passing this book on to my granddaughter who was born into "fashionista-dom." She is 12 and has been interested in fashion since she could talk. There exists a great possibility that her career will be a fashion designer so this book is a necessity for her.

I am a member of the blog by the same name so some of the book reminded me of past conversations. What surprised me was though this is non-fiction I felt the same way I do with a good work of fiction - I couldn't put it down. Maybe it is our similar backrounds (Eastern European, mothers with dementia) or similar ages (middle), but I was able to put myself in some of the scenarios. I too, am starting to shop like a grownup and last week I bought the most expensive and beautiful jacket I have ever owned, knowing that it will still look good in ten years. I liked her sections on Catherine Hill and Emily Tinne. The key word in the title is "Thoughtful". I highly recommend it.

The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant explores both the dark side and the light side of clothing and fashion. In many ways she makes the point that the attraction of fashion and beautiful clothing is not rational, but is based on pleasure. She says: "... we do not choose to eat, say, a chocolate eclair, with the aim of fulfilling our daily calorie quota." Grant compares the pleasures of food and clothing, and various attacks on those who enjoy them: "We fall victim to a cake because it is delicious. Interestingly the angry rages against unnecessary clothes are seldom replicated in moral campaigns against flambeed cherries or steak au poivre. No one pickets restaurants or rails against the conspicuous waste of unnecessary calories in a three-course meal.... It is pointless fashion, not pointless cuisine, that gets the moralists's goat, and you would have to be pretty dim not to sniff the stench of misogyny that surrounds their outrage." (p. 99) Do you think you have no interest in clothing and fashion? Linda Grant will show you that there is much more involved than you might guess. All people wear clothes almost every moment of their lives, and make some type of choices of what those clothes are. Clothes, she demonstrates, are never without meaning. She describes how the victims of some of the twentieth century's most horrifying outrages managed their pain by enjoying the beauty of well-made clothing: we can't have depths, she points out, without surfaces. One subject of the book is a woman named Catherine Hill, who survived Auschwitz and became a leader in bringing European high-level fashion to Canada. The depths and surfaces of this woman provide insights into what Grant is saying about the meaning of clothing. I enjoyed the descriptions of the author's mother, who loved shopping and good clothing. It contrasted so much with my memories of my own mother, who hated shopping and would gladly wear hand-me-downs if she could avoid going to a department store to buy something new. Grant's interest in owning designer clothing and shoes contrasts enormously to my approach. I sit here wearing L.L.Bean jeans, sweater, and turtleneck; Birkenstocks, and cheap socks from Target. I never wear high heels and never have. She wouldn't approve of me at all. But I approve of her: she offers a view of what makes so many people what they are.