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

“Most of us realize that politicians have a unique talent,” British fashion editor Annalisa Barbieri claimed. “Give them an outfit or a sentence, and they put it together in the most convoluted, illogical and unattractive way possible.” The matronly frumpiness of female political figures, with their dreary clothing choices (power suits with shoulder pads, the ubiquitous string of pearls) has rarely made first ladies and female politicians trendsetters.

Robb Young argues in Power Dressing: First Ladies, Women Politicians and Fashion that this perception is rapidly changing. A fashion journalist for the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, and British Vogue online, Young says that now, feeling less pressure to blend in with dark-suited males (those shoulder pads did serve a purpose), political women are expressing themselves through clothing like never before.

Today the media report on political women’s style in the breathless manner used for supermodels and actresses. But where the clothing choices of male politicians are rarely more complicated than the colour of their ties, women “take a gamble” no matter what outfit they choose.

A female public figure who doesn’t put effort into her style is criticized for being slovenly and dull, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Karl Lagerfeld: “The cut of her trouser is not good.”) If she puts in too much effort, she’s a frivolous spendthrift, disconnected from the problems of real people, like former Spanish Vice-President María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz, whose every outfit was documented on a website which questioned how she could afford them on her official salary. The memory of Imelda Marcos, who, after her husband was deposed as President of the Philippines, was found to own 1,060 pairs of shoes, haunts all political wardrobes.

Fashion is still an unspoken “f-word” in the world of politics. None of the subjects of Young’s profiles agreed to participate. This forced him to find unconventional interviewees, such as local designers from their countries, other fashion journalists, and people who worked for the women, such as Sarah Palin’s stylist during the 2008 U.S. election, who describes the difficulty of glamming up the former Governor of Alaska without ruining her folksy appeal.

While his topic is appearances, Young’s analysis is not superficial. He includes such controversial figures as activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Saddam Hussein’s wife Sajida (current whereabouts unknown) and three of South African President Jacob Zuma’s five wives. Fascinating details abound. Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright matched her jeweled brooches to her moods (a turtle for when trips were going slow, a spider when she wanted to look tough). Rebiya Kadeer, an activist for the Uighur people, always wears a traditional square doppa skullcap, which the Chinese government takes as a direct affront. Embattled former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, known for her blonde braided crown, was forced to unfurl and redo her hairstyle on national TV to prove she did it herself.

Looking stylish may help some women, but for others looking unfashionable is an asset: President of Finland Tarja Halonen’s clothes never fit properly, but her dowdiness matches her down-to-earth personality and is beloved by the Finnish people.

Fashion provides an original entry into the messy complexity of world politics, and Young gives it the intelligence, style, and wit it deserves. If he could be faulted for not developing stronger arguments, it’s due to the breadth and intricacies of his chosen topic.

A book that places former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (whose coif was so firm that she emerged from IRA bombings un-mussed) directly next to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s wife Azam Al Sadat Farahi (little seen behind her black chador) demonstrates that, different as they may be, female political figures have at least two things in common. They all get dressed in the morning and what they wear, be it white pearls or a black scarf, will be noticed.

Earlier on this blog I argued that when we obsess about women politician’s clothes we prevent them from achieving equal footing with men. Robb Young offers another take: that political women, because of their wider sartorial choices, have a better opportunity to establish their background, values and personality through their clothes. But they must be careful: the world of fashion, like the world of politics, is very rarely simple.

Power Dressing: First Ladies, Women Politicians and Fashion by Robb Young, Merrell, 2011
reviewed by Max Mosher
photography by Samantha Walton

In the fall of 2010, I attended a party at the Barneys on Madison Avenue in New York City. Simon Doonan was signing flip-flops on the main floor and the Olsen twins were about to cause a riot upstairs. Tavi Gevinson posed for pictures, while Anna Wintour hid in a corner with her Blackberry. The normally sedate department store was reduced to a well-groomed circus. Not exactly the store its eponymous patriarch Barney Pressman envisioned in 1923.

In his critical history, Joshua Levine recounts the story of three generations of Pressman men and Barneys, beginning with the store’s original incarnation, a bargain basement with a huge surplus of merchandise and deals to spare. The tagline was “Calling All Men!” And did they ever—Barneys was a jumble of a place, always stocked with every size, no matter how obscure. It’s clear that Levine delights in this original incarnation, as well as Pressman’s determination and hard-luck beginning.

In addition to the facts, Levine relays anecdotes from supporters and detractors of the store. Some are charming, some sad, some shocking: like when Barney Pressman sponsored the radio broadcast coverage of the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Charles Lindbergh’s two year old son. Levine explains: “Think of a small local haberdasher you had never heard of using the murder trial of Timothy McVeigh to hawk cheap suits, and you get an idea of the exhilarating tastelessness of the whole thing.” He pairs these secondhand stories with the cold hard numbers that took Barneys from an extremely profitable and powerful family business into its eventual bankruptcy. Even with all the figures, Levine keeps a fast pace and had me turning the pages nonstop to find out how it all ends.

After serving in World War II, Barney’s son Fred took control of the store. He worked steadily to acquire higher end merchandise and broaden their customer base. Now you could get Christian Dior and affordable suits in the same place. However, it was the third generation who brought about the family’s undoing. Gene Pressman and his appetite for excess (wild nights at Studio 54, lavish clothing for himself and his wife, homes photographed for prestigious interior design magazines), paired with his brother Bob’s “creative accounting” led the entire company to ruin. The Pressmans filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in 1996, relinquishing all but two per cent of their stock (which they sold to the Jones Apparel Group in 2007). And Levine convincingly argues that this is best for the store and for its patrons.

Since the publication of this book, Barneys has gone through a wide range of CEOs and primary shareholders. I happen to be extremely interested in the cutthroat nature of designer fashion retail, so this book was perfect for me. Levine is subtle but insistent in his belief that the Pressmans failed because they stopped catering to “all men” and fell into the trap of serving a very particular customer, foregoing profits for their own brand of elitism. Photo-ops with celebrities are all well and good, but affordable merchandise that people actually want to buy? That’s priceless.

The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys: A Family Tale of Chutzpah, Glory, and Greed By Joshua Levine (William Morrow/Harper Collins, 1999)

review by Haley Mlotek
photography by Samantha Walton