Readers of Worn are known to geek out not only over clothes, but over books as well. Though we’ve already started collectively consuming a ton of books from 2012, we’re still not quite done discussing our favourite reads from last year. To expand the conversation, we asked some of our favourite fashion nerds to share with us the best books they read in 2011.

Nathalie Atkinson, National Post Style Editor
Searching for Beauty, by Cherie Burns

Generally, biographies of the idle rich are to be avoided, but I make an exception for Millicent Rogers. I’d been curious about the Standard Oil heiress for years (her grandfather Henry was in business with John D. Rockefeller), but until Cherie Burns’ Searching for Beauty (St. Martin’s Press) there had been virtually no original biographical research about this late great dame of American fashion (who died at 51, too young, in 1953). I’m forever having a 1920s and 1930s moment (what I would give to have lived back then!) and took Burns’ book on holiday in August, pairing it with two other complementary reads: Flapper, Joshua Zeitz’s superb historical and fashion survey of the first modern women of the first modern decade, and lexicographer-slash-dress-blogger Erin McKean’s whimsical and breezy novel The Secret Lives of Dresses, which concerns the fictional stories of vintage dresses in a boutique.

I didn’t come up for air until the last page. Eccentric high society clotheshorses seem ubiquitous today, but in the late teens and 1920s, Rogers was an original. Astute about clothes, she was ridiculously wealthy but rebellious, and did things her own way—for example, she wore Patou to her coming-out debutante ball at the New York Ritz and made several loopy costume changes thoughout the night. She later became the patron and muse of London couturier Charles James’s classic American evening gown look, and had romantic conquests (Cary Grant!), but instead of following the prevailing fads she remained true to her own style - rather than merely the good little clothes hanger for the designers of the day that so many boldface socialites and celebrities are today. With a closet bulging with Mainbocher, Lanvin and Valentina mixed with the anonymous finds of her far-flung travels, Rogers’s confident and idiosyncratic style choices regularly inspired her friend Diana Vreeland: she went from Tyrol to hippie-chic eclectic and is the originator of the all-American, preppy-Southwest hybrid look that has become Ralph Lauren’s signature. In the 1940s, she moved to the mountains of New Mexico, to Taos, and designed huge, beautiful jewellery that mixed turquoise with diamonds, and wore it as knights did armour—often elbow to fingertip. Rogers left behind this and an important art collection, too—thousands of Southwest artifacts and American Indian jewellery. As fits the under-hyped style icon, she’s buried in an Apache dress by Elsa Schiaparelli.

Randi Bergman, FASHION Magazine, The Katie Girls
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, Lisa Vreeland

I loved Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel as much for its visual splendour as its personal twist. Edited by the wife of the famed editrix’s grandson turned most ardent admirer, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, the book is not only a compilation of her best work, but a journey through the mind of a genius, from her not so humble beginnings to her trumpeted end. I loved the juxtapositions of some of her more famous work (like Dovima with Elephants) with some of her earlier work found in personal archives, like a George Hoyningen-Huene shot of a woman all in red, complete with cigarette holder, pearls, and turban, from Bazaar in 1939. I also loved the bits of art history that obviously foreshadowed her tenure at the Met, Irving Penn’s shots of Georgia O’Keefe from a 1970 Vogue, and Cecil Beaton’s Man Ray-ish shot of Marjorie Wilson from her book Allure.

What I love more than the images are the little tidbits that I learned when speaking to Lisa, like the fact that Vreeland came from a privileged family so she didn’t need to work, but that her mother always made her feel like an ugly duckling, which made her strive for something more than resting on her laurels. Given all of the personal access that Vreeland had, I would have liked to have seen more personal artifacts, like letters and postcards, because I always love that stuff, but I guess this was meant to be more of a visual tome. And that, it certainly is.

Monica Sklar, Worn Through
Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrl Revolution by Sara Marcus

I completed my PhD in Design-Apparel Studies in November 2010 and hope to start back to work in Fall 2012, so I’ve been on a very rare hiatus (for me) from reading fashion books. However, I am working on writing my own book on fashion, punk style to be specific, and so much of what I have been reading relates to that research. My favorite book of the year on that topic was Girls to the Front by Sara Marcus. I was completely engrossed in this historical account of the ‘90s subcultural movement. Marcus paints vivid pictures not only of the individuals, events and emotions of the period, but includes many facts about body image, dress style, fashion leaders, and visual image development that were pertinent to the time. Everything from writing with Sharpies on the body to baby barrettes, cat eye glasses, and issues of being “pretty” are explored and put in context against not only the mainstream, but also other facets of punk and subculture. I was impressed with Marcus’s attention to detail, thoughtful prose, and obviously exhaustive research. It was refreshing that the inclusions of dress concepts were not afterthoughts, but were important aspects of the text. And personally, it helped me better understand a stylistic genre I lived through and participated in, but for which I didn’t necessarily know all of the origin stories.

Anita Clarke, I Want I Got
The Banana Republic Guide to Travel and Safari Clothing, Mel Ziegler

My fashion favourite book for 2011 is one I discovered through Philip Sparks. I have a real fetish for military uniform and fashion inspired by it. This book dedicates itself to the history of travel and safari clothing, and combines history, personal stories, illustrations, and a fashion glossary. You have traveler stories from actors, military figures, and other notables sitting alongside descriptions of items like the safari jacket, which are beautifully illustrated. It’s easy to read from cover to cover, or you can use it like a research book and look up specific items. If you are lover of fashion history and military inspiration, I believe you’ll love this book like I did.

Sarah Nicole Prickett, Toronto Standard Style Editor
My Dear Bomb, Yohji Yamamoto

I would bet my Charlotte Olympias that literary people know less about fashion than fashion people do about literature. It’s becoming something of a shame. Yohji Yamamoto’s biography—a small, dense, slowly explosive book that reads more like plotless literary memoir, or poetry—should have been in the New York Times Book Review. Or at least on The Millions. There is no better argument for clothing as serious pleasure, as protection, as salvation. “Fashion sighs after trends,” writes Yamamoto (or rather, writes his co-author, Ai Mitsuda). “I want timeless elegance. Fashion has no time. I do. I say: Hello Lady, how can I help you? … It is more about helping women to suffer less, to attain more freedom and independence.” This book made me adore Yamamoto. More importantly, it made me think about perfection, failure, art, modernity, feminism, and desire. I couldn’t ask more of the greatest American novel.

What was your best fashion read in 2011?

photo by Alyssa K. Faoro for issue 12

When handed this book, I felt like I was intruding—the hand crafted spine creaked with hours of the author’s labor, and the muted green fabric frayed at the corners. I felt as though I had been handed a diary, and as it turns out, I sort of had been. Waisted Curves: My Transformation Into A Victorian Lady chronicles Sarah Chrisman’s journey from corset loather to Victorian garment educator and advocate in 250 hand-bound pages. We see Chrisman’s disdain for corsets melt away as she laces herself into the garment daily, and witness her transformation of thought and body, all brought about by an article of clothing.

Chrisman begins the narrative on her birthday, when her husband Gabriel gives her a corset as a gift. This spurs an extensive personal change, both physically and mentally. The narrow conception of corsets with which she begins the memoir quickly changes as she learns more about the history and practices of corsetry. Eventually, she dismisses the idea of the corset as oppressive as she records her changes in self-perception and self-esteem.

Despite this eventual change, the journey begins reluctantly. In the opening pages she admits to thinking, “At least he didn’t buy the most expensive version of a thing I’ll never wear.” But at the close of her story we see her in an “ankle-length wool skirt, three petticoats [and] cashmere-lined leather gloves.” She gradually adopts more Victorian inspired garments—and at times real vintage pieces from this era—into her day-to-day wardrobe. Waisted Curves is not simply a diary of what Chrisman wore each day, but is also full of historical and practical information about the garments she describes. In between stories of Victorian fashion shows gone awry, and stuffing a broken foot into kitten-heeled boots, Chrisman informs us about the history of not only corsetry but also Victorian apparel in general. In an often humorous tone, she examines the myths and misconceptions of the corset, and turns them inside out.

Reading this book reminded me of just how much what we wear shapes us—both figuratively and literally. Our feelings about our bodies are complex, and though we put on clothing every day, we don’t often think about garments as being able to address or reconfigure any of these feelings. If we hate the way a flap of skin sits on the top of our jeans, our disapproval is not likely transferred to the jeans themselves. We tend to think that our bodies should work around the clothing we wear, instead of the reverse.

Chrisman’s experience with corsets highlights the fact that clothing should work for your body and self-esteem, not against, and emphasizes the inseparability of clothing and body image. Throughout Waisted Curves, she becomes increasingly comfortable and proud of her corseted figure, until being without a corset leaves her feeling naked and uncomfortable. In the same sense, some women may feel foreign in their own skin when they unclasp the eyehooks of a bra. How clothing affects our perceptions of our own bodies is subjective, but as Chrisman’s book reveals, there is a direct connection.

What made me uncomfortable was how frequently Chrisman was approached or interviewed by complete strangers regarding her corseting practices—imagine the disgruntled woman sitting next to you on the subway asking you your cup size. At times, people’s audacity was shocking. It reminded me that, sometimes unfortunately, once what we wear enters the public domain, it becomes open for commentary—be it scrutiny or admiration. She handles both of these reactions with grace, never faltering or holding back as onlookers prod and pull at her petticoats. Chrisman’s experience pushed me to be not only confident in what I choose to wear, but knowledgeable as to why and how I am choosing to wear it.

Waisted Curves: My Transformation Into A Victorian Lady by Sarah A. Chrisman, AEGIS & OWL PRESS, 2010
reviewed by Casie Brown

Pepin Press is a Dutch publishing house started as a one-man graphic design and book production operation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Run by namesake Pepin van Roojen, these books all seem to focus on snapshots of deep niches in design; be it typography, packaging design, crowns, or kimono patterns. It’s a wholly homegrown operation, and much of the material is culled from his own decorative art originals, textiles, and fashion archives.

50s Fashion is the 4th instalment in a series on textile design. Concentrating on the major influences of the later part of the era including florals, abstract art, graphic designs, asymmetric prints, folk art illustration, and novelty prints. Due to advancements in mass printing and technology and a collective cultural desire to leave behind the war-torn, austere ’40s in favour of a “fun and modern” lifestyle, the textile market of the ’50s exploded with these eclectic prints.

The bulk of the book is high-quality, close-up photos of individual textile prints, accompanying period garments made from those prints, and vintage illustration plates and advertisements, all organized according to influence. The small amount of text is limited to a brief, general introduction to women’s fashion in the decade, a highlight of Parisian blouse trends and textile inspirations, and a small excerpt on bathing suit textiles. Some explainations of specific prints can be found, but are not the focus of the book. A fun and welcomed bonus is a CD, with high and low-resolution images of many patterns in the book, which Pepin allows people to copy for small-scale, personal and commercial use.

The side-by-side of print and garment are helpful, to see how the fabrics fall on a three-dimensional form, as it can create quite a different perception of pattern and scale, though they are styled with contemporary hair and make-up. Overall, its best use is probably as a supplemental text for a vintage or design aficionado in need of a reference point, rather than a primer on a decade of textile prints.

50s Fashion (Pepin Fashion, Textiles and Patterns series, No. 4) Edited by Pepin van Roojen. Pepin Press, 2010

review by Magenta Piroska
photography by Jessica da Silva

Fact: sewing patterns can be intimidating. Really intimidating. Intimidating to the point that I hardly ever sew anymore because I’m under the impression that anything I would want to make from scratch and then wear would be a hair-pullingly complex and painful process.

To make a long story short, I was very, very wrong.

Erin Arsenault’s Stay-Stitched: Sewing without a pattern and designing as you go is possibly the most approachable sewing how-to book I’ve ever read. It’s also exactly what it says on the box—at no point is a pattern ever used, and since garment pieces are based on your own measurements, everything is designed to fit your specific shape. Arsenault describes it as a “workbook,” and she isn’t kidding. There are spaces for you to fill in with your measurements, and plenty of gridded blank pages for your notes, sketches, and ideas. The book contains instructions for eleven projects, including a simple tote bag, a cute kimono, and wide-leg sailor pants. It also has a list of basic sewing supplies, stitches, and instructions on how to do things such as make your own bias tape, add in pockets, and make facings for neck and arm holes.

Since making a tote bag for the purpose of this review seemed like cheating, I chose to make the “Egyptian Tunic,” a simple A-line skirt with braces. After picking out some cutely creepy Norman Rockwell baby-face print cotton, I set to work on my skirt. It was remarkably easy—all you do is use your measurements to find the waistband width and strap length, and the length and flare of the skirt are up to you. I ended up making my skirt shorter and more fitted at the waist than the book suggested, which was not a problem at all, simply a matter of pinning and re-stitching one of the side seams—and I love the way it turned out.

And that’s the beauty of Stay-Stitched—everything is customizable. All you have to do is re-draw your lines if you don’t like the way something fits or looks. Even if the projects in the book aren’t to your liking, I’m sure you could apply the skills learned in these pages to other clothes-making endeavours. A novice stitcher could learn a lot by starting at the beginning and working their way through. (Just a little note on the projects—the book is very skirt- and dress-heavy, but I’m sure some crafty gentlemen and those who don’t like skirts would appreciate the sailor pants and viking tunic.) I can also see this book being a godsend for anybody who doesn’t fit into standard pattern sizes.

I would highly recommend Stay-Stitched to people who want to learn to make their own clothes but don’t know where to start, or to jaded semi-experienced seamstresses like myself, who just need their faith in their abilities renewed.

Stay-Stitched: Sewing without a pattern and designing as you go, self-published by Erin Arsenault, 2009
reviewed by Kat Brightwell