Originally posted on my blog, Confessions of a Fashion Editor, today. : )
I'm sooo excited to be writing this, as the first ever post on the newer, shinier BSB! Yay!
Anyway... over to The Meaning of Sunglasses!
Image source: www.myfashionlife.com
So, I thought that it was about time that I explained to you precisely why I worship Hadley Freeman in the manner I do. Most who've heard her know her for her tongue-in-cheek fashion and political columns in The Guardian, and yes, I do avidly read every one of these, but I think that the best thing she's ever written has to be her first book, The Meaning of Sunglasses, which was first published by Penguin Press in 2008.
Essentially, it's an A to Z guide of the entire fashion industry, including such scintilating tit-bits as "Haute Couture, taking self-indulgence to a whole new level", and "Jacobs, Mark, genius or what?", and "Plastic Surgery and how all those 1950s horror B-movies weren't so far off the mark" - nothing strikingly new is presented to the reader, however. In fact, the reason it's so brilliant, in my opinion, is because it does just that: it tells it like it is, which so many don't.
It's also has a political slant, hidden somewhere between the lines. Well, she is a Guardian journalist, after all.
Through this, though, the reader is made to feel slightly less heinous for working in such an image-conscious and often shallow industry. Take me, as an example. I'm a loud-and-proud feminist of the TheFBomb or Mookychick ilk, and I'm also a fashion blogger and editor. I often see things in this industry that I find disgusting, and sometimes I wonder why I even bother...
However, this delightful quote makes me feel so so so soooo much better -
“It seems similarly anti-female to suggest that in order to be a true feminist, one is not allowed to have any vanity… Patriarchal society or not, everyone likes to look good…
Here, one suspects, lies the nub of the anti-fashion prejudice. Good God, women doing something – just for themselves? Spending their own money? Women making themselves feel good just for themselves…? Dear God, cover your eyes, think of the children!”
And check this Marie Claire article out - the book's launch party was at Mulberry. Very stylish, je crois.
So, what do I think?
Well, on every level, I'd give this book a nice nine or ten out of ten.
And no, not just because it's by Ms Freeman!
LoveLoveLove
- A -
Legal Note:
This review is of a book I paid for myself. (Well, Ok, my Mum bought it. Same difference.)
It is impartial, and are merely my own opinions.
