DesertIslandBookworm
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I've seen threads here recommending NON-fiction titles about women's fashions, but have there been any threads about FICTION in which fashion/clothing is important to plot and character development? Would love to hear your favorites!
Novels written during bygone eras can give modern readers a better idea of the feelings behind the fashion choices of the original owners/wearers of vintage costumes. I have a small collection of such books that I'd like to recommend.
1966 CLOTHESHORSE by Marjory Hall is set in behind the scenes world of New York-based fashion magazine. Girl who starts out in the mail room eventually learns what true glamour means, and how to dress appropriately is more becoming than striving to follow eye-catching fads.
www.imagecascade.com has reprints of popular 1940's, 1950's and early 1960's teen novels which often deal with clothing choices by girls becoming young women.
Two books I love by Elizabeth Enright (classed as "children's") GONE-AWAY LAKE and RETURN TO GONE-AWAY include 11 year old girls in 1950's allowed to dress up in Victorian finery (such as white satin ballgown by famous designer Worth!) stored in attic of elderly lady who
because of limited income, still wears her mother's and older sisters' long-ago wardrobes left when they married.
I'm a newbie here, having just found this site today thru a link at www.thefedoralounge.com, which in turn was cited in 2008 intriguing novel I just finished reading about a teenage taxi-dancer in Chicago during the early 1940's, titled TEN CENTS A DANCE by Christine Fletcher. Girl's "work clothes" sound lovely, luscious.
By coincidence, a non-fiction book I've been reading this week, SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME by Sara Nelson raved about a 2001 novel titled "SLAMMERKIN br Emma Donoghue , which a friend of her's recommended by saying, "It's not about history--it's about clothes."
Like classic American Victorian novel SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser, SLAMMERKIN (set in 1700's England) details how a young woman's love of fashion sets her on the slippery slope to becoming a "soiled dove" (tho when I first read Sister Carrie as a young teen, either author wrote so obliquely about her new profession, or I was too young to understand any clues--I was merely fascinated by novel's descriptions of Victorian fashions Carrie coveted!)
For similar reason, another favorite novel of mine then was lesser-known Louisa May Alcott's EIGHT COUSINS (one chapter contrasts "fashionable", impractical--and "ugly" to guardian uncle/Doctor of rich orphan teen girl protagonist--and comfortable, becoming "Health suit" for winter wear. )
Author Grace Livingston Hill wrote around 100 novels (I have copies of most), beginning in the late 1800's up to late 1940's or so. Most are still in print, I think, partly because of her detailed description of life in those times, often including fashions!
Hill's 1903 novel ACCORDING TO PATTERN tells how a wife tries to win back her straying husband, in part by using her skills with a needle to copy imported French fashions on display in a "heavenly" upscale department store. 1897 IN THE WAY has heroine who returns to her country farm brothers after being raised by an wealthy aunt in the city who stressed girl take courses in making garments (and cookery); she's also talented in interior design.
Hill's mentor was very popular Victorian writer Isabella Alden (pen name Pansy). Latter's novel FOUR GIRLS AT CHAUTAUQUA contrasts four friends' personalities and social status by describing their clothes and attitudes toward same.
Other Hill novels in which fashion expresses personality:
1928 CRIMSON ROSES (girl gets inspiration for new wardrobe from imported French frocks in department store where she works; contrasts her "classy" style with crude co-worker flappers, as does 1927 JOB'S NIECE, 1929 PRODIGAL GIRL, 1931 SILVER WINGS, 1939 HOMING (post-Great Depression & Scarlett O'Hara"remake" of Crimson Rose).
Two of my favorites echo Hill's belief she could make anything she put her hand too (she made lovely white fan as a girl using chicken feathers!): 1925 NOT UNDER THE LAW and 1924 RE-CREATIONS (in which girl must leave college before she can graduate as professional interior decorator, discovers she can use her skills to make real home for her impoverished family and also help neighbors in poor area).
Another favorite prolific writer, who carefully researched life in an earlier time, is Georgette Heyer, who fills in the details left out of Jane Austen's novels (apparently to keep Jane's then-"contemporary" novels from seeming "dated"). Love scene in ARABELLA where mother and daughters go through out-dated late 1700's fashions worn by Mama before she wed, to see if any could be re-made for daughter's trip to London.
Georgette Heyer's CONVENIENT MARRIAGE and THESE OLD SHADES also describe high fashion of late 1700's; CIVIL CONTRACT points at coming fashions of 1830's.
Would love to hear of other "fashion fiction", especially describing life from mid-20th century and earlier. Thanks!
Novels written during bygone eras can give modern readers a better idea of the feelings behind the fashion choices of the original owners/wearers of vintage costumes. I have a small collection of such books that I'd like to recommend.
1966 CLOTHESHORSE by Marjory Hall is set in behind the scenes world of New York-based fashion magazine. Girl who starts out in the mail room eventually learns what true glamour means, and how to dress appropriately is more becoming than striving to follow eye-catching fads.
www.imagecascade.com has reprints of popular 1940's, 1950's and early 1960's teen novels which often deal with clothing choices by girls becoming young women.
Two books I love by Elizabeth Enright (classed as "children's") GONE-AWAY LAKE and RETURN TO GONE-AWAY include 11 year old girls in 1950's allowed to dress up in Victorian finery (such as white satin ballgown by famous designer Worth!) stored in attic of elderly lady who
because of limited income, still wears her mother's and older sisters' long-ago wardrobes left when they married.
I'm a newbie here, having just found this site today thru a link at www.thefedoralounge.com, which in turn was cited in 2008 intriguing novel I just finished reading about a teenage taxi-dancer in Chicago during the early 1940's, titled TEN CENTS A DANCE by Christine Fletcher. Girl's "work clothes" sound lovely, luscious.
By coincidence, a non-fiction book I've been reading this week, SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME by Sara Nelson raved about a 2001 novel titled "SLAMMERKIN br Emma Donoghue , which a friend of her's recommended by saying, "It's not about history--it's about clothes."
Like classic American Victorian novel SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser, SLAMMERKIN (set in 1700's England) details how a young woman's love of fashion sets her on the slippery slope to becoming a "soiled dove" (tho when I first read Sister Carrie as a young teen, either author wrote so obliquely about her new profession, or I was too young to understand any clues--I was merely fascinated by novel's descriptions of Victorian fashions Carrie coveted!)
For similar reason, another favorite novel of mine then was lesser-known Louisa May Alcott's EIGHT COUSINS (one chapter contrasts "fashionable", impractical--and "ugly" to guardian uncle/Doctor of rich orphan teen girl protagonist--and comfortable, becoming "Health suit" for winter wear. )
Author Grace Livingston Hill wrote around 100 novels (I have copies of most), beginning in the late 1800's up to late 1940's or so. Most are still in print, I think, partly because of her detailed description of life in those times, often including fashions!
Hill's 1903 novel ACCORDING TO PATTERN tells how a wife tries to win back her straying husband, in part by using her skills with a needle to copy imported French fashions on display in a "heavenly" upscale department store. 1897 IN THE WAY has heroine who returns to her country farm brothers after being raised by an wealthy aunt in the city who stressed girl take courses in making garments (and cookery); she's also talented in interior design.
Hill's mentor was very popular Victorian writer Isabella Alden (pen name Pansy). Latter's novel FOUR GIRLS AT CHAUTAUQUA contrasts four friends' personalities and social status by describing their clothes and attitudes toward same.
Other Hill novels in which fashion expresses personality:
1928 CRIMSON ROSES (girl gets inspiration for new wardrobe from imported French frocks in department store where she works; contrasts her "classy" style with crude co-worker flappers, as does 1927 JOB'S NIECE, 1929 PRODIGAL GIRL, 1931 SILVER WINGS, 1939 HOMING (post-Great Depression & Scarlett O'Hara"remake" of Crimson Rose).
Two of my favorites echo Hill's belief she could make anything she put her hand too (she made lovely white fan as a girl using chicken feathers!): 1925 NOT UNDER THE LAW and 1924 RE-CREATIONS (in which girl must leave college before she can graduate as professional interior decorator, discovers she can use her skills to make real home for her impoverished family and also help neighbors in poor area).
Another favorite prolific writer, who carefully researched life in an earlier time, is Georgette Heyer, who fills in the details left out of Jane Austen's novels (apparently to keep Jane's then-"contemporary" novels from seeming "dated"). Love scene in ARABELLA where mother and daughters go through out-dated late 1700's fashions worn by Mama before she wed, to see if any could be re-made for daughter's trip to London.
Georgette Heyer's CONVENIENT MARRIAGE and THESE OLD SHADES also describe high fashion of late 1700's; CIVIL CONTRACT points at coming fashions of 1830's.
Would love to hear of other "fashion fiction", especially describing life from mid-20th century and earlier. Thanks!
