Beckerman, Ilene. Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1995.
This is on the list in honor of National Fashion Month. Someone told me it really does exists (this fashion month), so I’ve added a bunch of books to the April List. Go Figure.
Anyway, back to Love, Loss, and What I Wore. What a freakin’ cute book. At first I was a cynic and thought, geeze, if this is writing then anyone can do it! Basically Beckerman’s book is small, 139 page, 50% illustrated, all about what she wore throughout major moments of her life. We’re only talking about 65 pages of text which only took me 25 minutes to read (twice). But, in all actuality I loved it. Here are a few reasons why:
I have a lot in common with Beckerman despite the fact she grew up in New York City in the 1940’s and 50’s. For example:
- Her sister had a significant other who didn’t like her name and insisted on calling her something completely different (ahem)
- She sometimes wore clothing backwards because it suited her better that way ( 🙂 )
- She went to Simmon College (yup)
- She has a fur coat from Bonwit Teller (don’t hate me)
- She has shopped at the Short Hills Mall (you have too, RT!)
- She prefers black (duh)
Quotes that caused me to think:
“After I went to love with my grandparents, I never saw my father again” (p 40).
“In another drawer she kept a long, thick, auburn braid of hair that my mother had saved from when she was young and had cut her hair. It was about fourteen inches in length, and sometimes I wore it as a chignon” (p 86). Does anyone else find this a little funky?
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Do Clothes Make the Man (or Woman)?” (p 75).
~*LunaSea*~ 