Synopses & Reviews
As a glance down any street in America quickly reveals, American women have forgotten how to dress. We chase fads, choose inappropriate materials and unattractive cuts, and waste energy tottering in heels when we could be moving gracefully. Quite simply, we lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally and flatteringly.
As historian and expert dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals in The Lost Art of Dress, it wasnand#8217;t always like this. In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of womenand#151;the so-called Dress Doctorsand#151;taught American women how to stretch each yard of fabric and dress well on a budget. Knowledge not money, they insisted, is the key to timeless fashion. Based in Home Economics departments across the country, the Dress Doctors offered advice on radio shows, at womenand#8217;s clubs, and in magazines. Millions of young girls read their books in school and at 4-H clothing clubs. As Przybyszewski shows, the Dress Doctorsand#8217; concerns werenand#8217;t purely superficial: they prized practicality, and empowered women to design and make clothing for both the workplace and the home. They championed skirts that would allow women to move about freely and campaigned against impractical and painful shoes. Armed with the Dress Doctorsand#8217; simple design principlesand#151;harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasisand#151;modern American women from all classes could learn to dress for all occasions in a way 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 beautyand#151;rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.
Review
New York Times Book ReviewLike another forgotten artifact, the hope chest, her...book is most delightfully and fragrantly packed.”
Boston Globe
"A fascinating and valuable book.”
Columbus Dispatch
A witty look at well-dressed women and a defense of the classic home-economics course.”
Books and Culture
The writing is sharp; the research thorough; and the book's illustrations alone are worth the price of entry.”
Threads Magazine
If youre interested in the history of fashion in America, or have just always wondered why Americans dont dress well anymoreand what that meansread The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish.... The Lost Art of Dress is an engaging and fascinating history of the evolution of fashion and Americas approach to clothing itself
If you love history as much as sewing, or are fascinated by the sewing and style manuals of the past, pick up a copy of The Lost Art of Dress.”
A Dress A Day
A fascinating read.... If you love the styles of the first half of the last century and wonder why they were so lovely (and why so many modern clothes are not), you should read this book. If you are interested in the history of popular fashion as worn by ordinary people, you should read this book. And if youre interested in some practical dress advice from the good Doctors, youll find that here, too. Highly recommended!”
Acculturated
An important, even revolutionary book.”
Shop the Garment District blog
[Przybyszewskis] wit and intelligence make this book as entertaining as it is informative.... The information it contains is timeless, so it won't matter how long it takes you to read it, so I suggest you buy it.”
American Age Fashion blog
This book is a rare birda scholarly book aimed at a broad audience that is a ripping good read.... Whether or not you alter your wardrobe, youll be fascinated by these admirable women who tried to make America more beautiful, one dress pattern at a time.”
Denver Sewing Collective
If you love fashion, history, and geek out about sewing youll love this book. It really is a fascinating read about some amazing women and should serve as inspiration to bring back beauty, thrift and style in to every day fashion.”
Library Journal
This entertaining read is funny, opinionated, and full of useful wisdommuch like the dress doctors themselves.”
Kirkus
[An] illuminating commentary.... Przybyszewskis fashion history shines a much-needed spotlight on a contingent of forgotten professionals and the role they played in dressing American women with style.”
Sadie Stein, The Paris Review
A tribute to a time when styleand maybe even lifefelt more straightforward, and however arbitrary, there were definitive answers.”
Karen Karbo, author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel
Linda Przybyszewskis remarkable, enchanting, well-researched history of America at its most stylish reminds us that once upon a time we were classy and fabulous. After reading The Lost Art of Dress, youll think twice before running to the store in sweat pants.”
Jennifer L. Scott, author of Lessons from Madame Chic
"An invaluable resource of inspiration. The Lost Art of Dress calls us to resurrect our stylish roots and bring tasteful beauty back to our everyday routine."
Claire Shaeffer, author of Couture Sewing Techniques
"The Lost Art of Dress by Linda Przybyszewski is a fascinating history about the Dress Doctors”teachers, writers, retailers, and designerswho advised women how to dress appropriately. Her extensive research in more than 700 books and magazines provides a wide range of information about changing trends throughout the twentieth century. Entertaining and informative, this book is essential reading for all fashion history students as well as everyone interested in fashion."
Lois Banner, Professor Emerita, Dept. of History and Gender Studies Program, University of Southern California, author of Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox
Linda Przybyszewski takes her readers on an imaginative journey through a largely forgotten universe of women writers in the twentieth century who wrote about the art of dressing well. The book is sprightly and well-written, and it suggests new directions for research in the history of fashion and of women. Przybyszewski offers useful critiques of the restrictive clothing of the nineteenth century, the sloppy clothing of the 1960s, the periodic infantilizing of women through dress design, and the increasing commoditization of products and pleasures. She mourns the loss of the elegance of the 1930s, when women looked both liberated and chic.”
Patricia Cunningham, Associate Professor Emerita of Fashion and Retail Studies, Ohio State University
This is an important work. In The Lost Art of Dress, dressmaker and historian Linda Przybyszewski skillfully delineates the rise of the Dress Doctors in the early twentieth century to their demise in the turbulent sixties. Przybyszewski excavated the lost texts of home economists and others who taught the art and science of dress through the application of five principles of art. Although Przybyszewski laments the decline of the teachings of the Dress Doctors during the 1960s, she sees their legacy in the recent rise of the craft of dressmaking and is encouraged by a renewed of interest of Americans in the art of dressing well and with good taste.”
Synopsis
"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.
Synopsis
From the sidewalk to the catwalk, theres no shortage of proof that Americans have lost the ability to dress well. Its not that we dress poorly on purpose; instead, we lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally, appropriately, and flatteringly. As historian and expert dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals in
The Lost Art of Dress, it wasnt always this way. In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of womenthe so-called Dress Doctorstaught Americans how to dress artfully, and spearheaded a nationwide movement toward beautiful, economical, and egalitarian fashion. Armed with the Dress Doctors simple design principles, modern American women from all social and economic classes could learn to dress in a way 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 readers to their timeless rules about beauty and shows that, with a little help, we can learn them again.
Synopsis
As Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Fashion is a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months.” And yet it serves to make us beautiful, or at least make us feel beautiful. In this book Mari Grinde Arntzen asks how and why this is—how can we be both enthralled by the fashion world, but at the same time appalled by the politics and practices of the garment industry? Why do we have such a love-hate relationship with fashion?
Arntzen guides us through the major figures and brands of todays fashion system, showing how they shape us and in turn why we love to be shaped by them. She focuses on everyday, affordable “fast fashion” brands as well as the luxury market, to show how both ends of the fashion industry exert a powerful force in our lives. As she argues, the world of fashion is both a dictatorship and a democracy that directs our shopping habits as well as our appearance. In this book she peels off the layers of the worlds fifth largest industry, garment by garment, to reveal fashion as a phenomenon, a business, and an art. What is fashion, what role does it play in a global system of adornment, and why do we beautify ourselves to death? She also looks at questions of body- and self-image, and celebrity- and self-obsession. Grinde Arntzen, a journalist who writes about fashion and visual culture, is both disturbed by its influence yet sympathetic to our desire—however ambivalent—to be stylish, smart, or trendy.
Synopsis
As Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Fashion is a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months.” And yet it serves to make us beautiful, or at least make us feel beautiful. In this book, Mari Grinde Arntzen asks how and why this is—how can fashion simultaneously attract us to its glamour and repel us with its superficiality and how being called “fashionable” can be at once a compliment and an insult.
Arntzen guides us through the major figures and brands of today’s fashion industry, showing how they shape us and in turn why we love to be shaped by them. She examines both everyday, affordable “fast fashion” brands, as well as the luxury market, to show how fashion commands a powerful influence on every socioeconomic level of our society. Stepping into our closets with us, she thinks about what happens when we get dressed: why fashion can make us feel powerful, beautiful, and original at the same time that it forces us into conformity. Stripping off the layers of the world’s fifth largest industry, garment by garment, she holds fashion up as a phenomenon, business, and art, exploring the questions it forces us to ask about the body, image, celebrity, and self-obsession.
Ultimately, Arntzen asks the most direct question: what is fashion? How has it taken such a powerful hold on the world, forever propelling us toward its concepts of beauty?
About the Author
Mari Grinde Arntzen is a journalist who writes for
Aftenposten and
Dagens Næringsliv and teaches at the School of Fashion Industry in Oslo, Norway.
Kerri Pierce is a translator specializing in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and German. Her translations include Mela Hartwigs
Am I a Redundant Human Being?; Kjersti Skomsvolds
The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am; and Lars Svendsens
A Philosophy of Freedom, the last also published by Reaktion Books. She lives in Pittsford, New York.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Human Beings
2. The Democracy
3. Dictatorship
4. The Brain
5. The Future
References