One for the fashion crew this. I saw this recommended by Colin McDowell in his regular feature (it’s called Colin’s Column….) on the Business of Fashion website. When we first started blogging Colin had his own blog where he would let rip about All Things Fashion that annoyed him. it was a very amusing read, but sadly he doesn’t do it any more although there’s plenty of his writing on his website and today’s B.O.F Colin’s Column is a cracking assessment of fashion criticism.
Colin rated this new book by Caroline Evans, the Mechanical Smile, as a must read for anyone interested in fashion, he said
“Although her subject does not seem immediately gripping, it makes compulsive reading for all who are serious about fashion and its history. It is an examination of the creation, development and influence of the fashion show in the first thirty years of the last century, a period when fashionable dress was beginning to be of much broader interest to the general public, not merely the enclosed world of the very rich. And the thing that made it so was the rise of the fashion presentation as the moving tableau that we now call a fashion show.”
Considering we spend a great deal of our time watching shows -or snippets from them- these days, it seems a good idea to understand the history behind it all. Colin also recommended Caroline’s previous book Fashion at The Edge if you’re interested in fashion history.
