A beautiful clothing book

With the great Australian dollar exchange rate a few weeks ago my husband and I decided to splurge and buy some books online.  I bought some fashion and clothing books and feel that I have to share one particular book with you. 

'High Style: Masterworks from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art'.  I love this book, it is beautifully set out and has wonderful photos.  It is exclusively women's wear, but has some shoes and hats in addition to clothing. 

The front cover - a stunning red dress.

Fabulous knitwear from over 100 years ago.

I love the lines on this dress.

Isn't this fabulous!  Imagine walking around town in this ensemble - so chic!

I've saved my favourite for last.  I love the dress below so much that if I wasn't already married, I would choose this as inspiration for my wedding dress.   

It is so bright and playful and just utterly gorgeous!

If you are interested in clothing or fashion I would absolutely recommend that you buy this book or maybe visit the Brooklyn Museum and see what they have on display (if you are near there!).  According to their website they had a display of American High Style last year.  Some of the dresses from that exhibit are shown in this book.

Just a note on copyright - as these pictures are photos I have taken from the actual book I will remove the pictures if the copyright holder of the original photos requests this.  Please don't reuse these pictures.  Thanks. 

Collections

This weekend the Lifeline Bookfair was on in Canberra.  The Lifeline Bookfair brings together lots of second hand goodies - giving you a hall full of books, games, jigsaws, magazines, CDs, records, videos and everything else related.  I've really cut down on the number of books I buy as I reason that I can borrow them from the library, so now I head straight to the jigsaws and the craft magazines. 

Since taking up knitting I've been proud of my restraint in not establishing a yarn SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy).  But as I was making a beeline for the craft magazines I realised that instead of having a yarn obsession collection I have a pattern SABLE! 

I love patterns, especially retro and vintage ones.  As well as being full of potential garments they are a little piece of social history.  I can spend hours looking through patterns (old and new) - the giant hair and oversize jumpers from the 1980s, the men's cardies and ladies twinsets from the 1960s and the sparkly disco singlets from the 1970s - they are all there and I love them all in their own way (though I would only wear a few!).

Many of the retro patterns I have were given to me by my mum- she kept all her patterns from when she was a keen knitter - but others are ones that friends have given me or ones that I have picked up in Op Shops or at book fairs. 

The couple of pattern books I bought on Saturday.

Some books from my stash.  I'm not sure what makes me laugh more - the grumpy lady with a gun on the 'Suddenly there's Scotch Mist' book, or the faces of the man on the 'Masculine Moods' book!

And of course - now that I have taken up sewing, I have also started a sewing pattern SABLE...!

What's your SABLE?

Joining the polo set

When I lived in England a few years ago I was drawn into the world of Jilly Cooper.  Her books are hilarious.  The characters are so vibrant, often because they are so vile, they get up to the most outlandish things and their lives are so far removed from anything I have known.  Jetsetting, high stakes betting, far too much alcohol and lots of other hijinks.  Pure escapism.  She has recently released a new book, so of course I had to buy it! 

And they introduced me to the delights of Pimms, which I have since introduced to my husband (though he remains completely resistant to Jilly's books!).