Out of suffering comes the demand for pleasure. When we have suffered we do not care less about clothes but more. To love clothes is to embrace life in all its joyous variety, even if all you ever do is turn the pages of a magazine and long for fairyland, crave couture ballgowns you will never own. We all need daydreams. (p. 36)
I am no one’s idea of a fashion expert and yet I love clothes. I have no need to accumulate them and ‘fashion’ as we understand it today – a never-ending parade of ridiculous and fleeting trends – leaves me cold. I love the textiles, I love the craftsmanship of a well-made piece, and I love the pride that comes with wearing something that makes you feel more yourself than you ever thought possible.
So, I came to The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant with high hopes of finding a kindred soul, someone who could intelligently articulate the importance of clothes without maligning them as the concern of flighty, thoughtless women. Grant does this beautifully, tracking the evolution of fashion throughout the Twentieth Century, from Chanel’s revolutionary liberation of the female form to Dior’s superb New Look, which enslaved women once more with its return to the cinched waist, through to the present day where cheap Third World labour makes fashion disposable and trend cycles increasingly brief. Throughout this saga, she weaves in both personal and historical anecdotes, everything from a discussion of her mother’s handbag collection to a particularly memorable quote about the joy women in freshly liberated concentration camps expressed when they received lipsticks from an aide group and the power a simple cosmetic gave them to feel feminine and human again.
Indeed, many of Grant’s examples focus on the Second World War. Scattered throughout the book are excerpts from an interview she did with Catherine Hill, a once influential fashion buyer based in Toronto and, equally important to Grant’s narrative, a survivor of Auschwitz. While I found some of Hill’s personal history fascinating, Grant uses her to illustrate multiple points and I quickly tired of hearing about her over and over again. Grant generally did an excellent job supporting her arguments with varied and unexpected examples but the repetitive use of Hill felt lazy (and unnecessary) in comparison.
As much as I appreciated her educated and passionate views on the topic, I’m not sure I agree with Grant’s personal approach to fashion. She comes across as someone devoted to acquisition, delighted by the experience of buying perhaps even more than the item she purchases. She seems very apt to form emotional bonds with clothing and shoes (particularly shoes – what gene am I missing that makes me view shoes as fulfilling a practical rather than sensual need?). She shuns the ‘classic’ staples as boring and is instead focused on the next new thing. She seems too easily influenced, happy to try on costume after costume, identity after identity, without really focusing on who she is and what clothes best express her personality irrespective of current fashions. The worst moment for me came when she equated glamour with visible brand names and flashy jewelry. No matter how much you praise my beloved Dior, I can never forgive that.
What this book really made me do is consider my own fashion history and the fashion identities of the women in my family – and we are a family where clothing does play an important role, from my mother’s infamous homemade peach wedding dress to my still-mourned blue velvet dress the nanny ruined when I was two. My grandmother was always impeccably turned out, usually in clothes of her own making. Pictures of her growing up show a little girl in sailor suits (with her three siblings identically attired) maturing into a young woman with stylish yet sensible hats and well-cut suits and coats. These clothes would have all be made for her or purchased. But somehow, goodness knows when, she learned to sew, a skill that saw her and her family through the lean times she could never have imagined as a pampered youth. She may not have had money but she had a good eye for what suited her and armed herself with clean, simple lines, neutral colours, and an overwhelming sense of who she was. She passed that sense of self down to both her daughters and, eventually, to me. We all dress very differently, as befits our personalities, but there’s still a visible legacy there. We wear the clothes, they do not wear us.
It’s that self-confidence that I think is so important and the absence of which bothered me the most in this book. The need for solace from a lipstick tube, sex appeal from a stiletto, status from a purse, none of it made sense to me. I can understand buying things that make you happy or remind you how beautiful or powerful you can be but it was something more than that when Grant described her personal shopping habits, a search for identity maybe, and rather than feeling engaged or fascinated, as I had at the book’s beginning, I ended feeling rather sad.
The Captive Reader 
A great, comprehensive review as always Claire. I have a copy of this book waiting on my shelf and I am looking forward to reading it and seeing what I think about Grant’s take on fashion. I am certainly no “fashionista” myself but I do love beautiful pieces of clothing and how they can make me feel, and unlike you I definitely have the shoe gene!!
Glad you liked the review – and I hope you enjoy the book when you come to it yourself!
This sounds interesting – great review. You’d enjoy Glamour by Carol Dyhouse for a more scholarly take on fashion and what it means to women.
I like being well dressed because looking good is feeling good, but I haven’t got the shoe gene and I couldn’t care less about designer labels. I like to look as good as possible and buy clothes that suit me, BUT I don’t follow fashion as most fashions are ridiculous. I do think that clothes are an important aspect of who you are and for many women they are their way of creating confidence and self assurance and a certain image. When you’re not feeling good, put on a fabulous dress, and all will be well! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that per se…we all need a little pick-me-up at times, but I do think people who work in the fashion industry and spend thousands of pounds on dresses because they judge other people on their clothes are desperately shallow and missing the point entirely.
Rachel, I’ll be sure to put Glamour on my TBR list! I absolutely agree that looking good is an important part of feeling good and your attitudes towards shopping/fashion sound very similar to mine. It’s the pressure to follow trends that drives me mad. I love clothes and the power they have but I think that fashion should be about using them, as you say, to create “confidence and self assurance and a certain image.” It seems too often that women are willing to rely souly on the clothes to determine their image without putting any of their own personality into their presentation. It’s that mindless dressing that bothers me most.
“The need for solace from a lipstick tube, sex appeal from a stiletto, status from a purse, none of it made sense to me.”
So well said!
I don’t think I have enough interest in fashion to finish reading this book and I do think I would have the same problems with it that you pointed out. However, I do enjoy a book on the history of clothes, or leaving through it, so who knows?
If you enjoyed reading about the history of clothes, I think you might enjoy this. Grant bothered me a little but I was still impressed with the book overall. The ideas and examples she presents are fascinating.
I am like you — to me, shoes are strictly utilitarian. 🙂 Most “sexy” women’s shoes look to me more like torture devices than footwear.
This book does sound intriguing — and fashion is a subject I’ve never delved into. Thanks for the thorough, thoughtful review!
Glad you enjoyed the review! It’s a fascinating book and I’d definitely recommend it. Grant also compare shoes to torture devices, yet still lusts after them. Can’t really understand that myself.
Fascinating review–although I do not agree with you about shoes. I love shoes. I particularly love to wear heels so that I can feel tall and stalk regally down halls with my heels going toc-toc-toc on the floor. 🙂
That said, I never understand acquiring things for the sake of the purchase. I love buying new things as much as the next person, but it’s really the things I’ve had for a while that meant the most to me, rather than the impersonal shiny new things.
I’m already quite tall and heels make me ridiculously so – less regal, more freakish. I have a lot of friends who feel the same way as you (including one friend who is already 6ft but just really likes to be 6’3”) but don’t the shoes hurt you after a time? I’ve never found anything comfortable and the whole idea of buying a pretty shoe that you can only hobble around in strikes me as odd. If I could find something comfortable, I might change my tune…
I’m 5’7″ to start with, so heels put me 5’9″ or 5’10”, which I quite like. 🙂
I have many comfortable pairs of heels, and some that are quite comfortable for a few hours and then progressively less so. I trot out the less comfy ones for special occasions, when I know I won’t have to wear them for very long. They are like straightening my hair–I know it makes me look awesomer, but I can only put up with it for about three hours at a time.
As some who is normally 5’10”, I can definitely agree that it’s a likeable height!
I didn’t agree with everything Grant felt from clothes, but I did love reading it. I think I just loved it because it took the ideas of clothes and fashion seriously!
And while I love shoes, I refuse to wear any that aren’t comfortable, because that idea just seems ridiculous to me.
Have you read A Guide to Elegance? It’s an advice book from the 60s, and I found it quite delightful (here’s my review). The opposite of trendy for sure!
I was really entertained by Grant and did enjoy the book – particularly the first half or even two-thirds. She is definitely serious about clothes and it was lovely to see someone consider them intelligently and seriously. I wish there were more books as thoughtful as this on the topic.
I remember reading a line somewhere (I think it was in one of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books) about how a woman should never wear shoes she can’t run in, if the need should arise. That pretty much sums up my attitude towards footwear. I still like pretty shoes, they just have to be comfortable and practical too.
I have read A Guide to Elegance! I thought it was charming.
I am from the city where Catherine H. made her reputation, and there are other aspects to the story, like any story of an ambitious, driven and talented person. Linda Grant was presented with a package as edited and carefully presented as a fashion show.
And… I love A Guide to Elegance, and dip into it often just for a little retro inspiratin.