Pretty clothes *sigh*

I love beautiful clothes, and I love beautiful books. So, naturally, I love beautiful books about beautiful clothes. I don't think I will ever quite understand why I adore clothing so much, but that doesn't stop me from trying. I think one of the reasons I read about style is because I'm attempting to understand why it's so important to me.

Two books I absolutely must have are released this week.

Dreaming of Chanel is a follow-on from Dreaming of Dior, which I blogged about here. It contains gorgeous fashion illustrations of vintage pieces. I could spend hours gawking at them.

A Life in Frocks, by Sydney Author Kelly Doust, is the most beautifully produced new release I have seen in years. The cover image below doesn't do it justice. Really. Every page is printed in two colours (black chapter text and red headers), with colour fashion illustrations scattered throughout (printed onto the page, not on separate plates). The paper has a beautiful texture. My favourite touch is that when you peek at the naked book beneath the dust jacket, you find colour illustrations of cute lingerie.

Kelly Doust writes:

Over the years clothes have comforted me, given me confidence, lured love interests, made me invisible, secured jobs, aged me and given back my youth. ... It's a testament to their immense power that clothes can be so many things.

If you know someone who loves clothes as much as I do, think about getting them one of these books for  Christmas.

View on fishpond: A Life in Frocks

The one about cover art

I was linked by a fellow blogger to this video of the design process for the cover of a Victorian/Steampunk novel. The cover is quite striking, and so is the creativity that goes into it!

It got me thinking about recent cover art. I am a sucker for a good cover. I have been known to buy books simply because the art was beautiful. Here's some covers that have caught my eye in the last year or so.

Of course, there are things I can't show with 2D pictures. You can't see that the cover of Dreaming of Dior is textured, and you can't see that Enchanted Hunters (besides wearing an incredibly detailed dust jacket) looks good naked.

View on fishpond: Fire, Friendship, Family, Love and Laughter (M.I.L.K), Dreaming of Dior, The Lady and the Chocolate, The Arrival, Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood

And now for a complete contradiction...

Above is the cover of a book I am currently reading. It's a book about economics, not a strength of mine, so I'm struggling a little to keep up. But so far, the gist is this: while we view the world as if value and price were roughly equivalent, they actually aren't. 'Price' is a highly artificial construct, and to move forward responsibly, we need to recognise it as such. So far, so good.

You can read more about the book here, and a review written by someone who does understand economics can be found here.

Meanwhile, I'm also reading the book shown below, a chronicle of just some of the 3000 vintage fashion pieces inherited by author Charlotte Smith. Each double page depicts a gorgeous illustration of the dress (or other item of clothing) in question, alongside a charming story about the adventures of a woman who once wore it.

You can find out more about the book here and read the author’s blog here.

My dad would laugh and call me a ‘good little consumer’ (style is my guilty passion), but I truly identify with the attitude Dreaming of Dior takes to clothes. There is something about wearing clothes you love which transcends the desire to cover yourself and/or look attractive.

Clothes become part of your identity. They say things about you that you would never dare to say aloud. They remind you of the wonderful times you’ve had in them. They add beauty and colour to an ordinary day. Getting dressed in the morning is an opportunity to centre myself, to begin the day as the person I want to be.

In spite of that, the better part of me knows that Patel is right. I have too many clothes.

Buy on fishpond: The Value of Nothing, Dreaming of Dior