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Learn to COOK - A Guide to Elegance: For Every Woman Who Wants to Be Well and Properly Dressed on All Occasions
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $10.17
Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: William Morrow
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 646.7042
EAN: 9780060757342
ISBN: 0060757345
Label: William Morrow
Manufacturer: William Morrow
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: 2004-08-01
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: 2004-07-27
Studio: William Morrow
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Editorial Reviews:
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The original What Not to Wear from one of fashion's most enduringly stylish women ... Written by French style guru Madame Genevieve Antoine Dariaux, Elegance is a classic style bible for timeless chic, grace, and poise -- every tidbit of advice today's woman could possibly need, all at the tips of her (perfectly manicured) fingers. From Accessories to Zippers, Madame Dariaux imparts her pearls of wisdom on all things fashion-related -- and also offers advice on other crucial areas in life from shopping with girlfriends (don't) to marriage and sex.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Just read the title, check the definition of elegance and you'll see it's not at all outdated!
Comment: To all those who had their politically correct, democratic, egalitarian toes stepped on by this great book...did you read the title?
It's called "A Guide to Elegance" not a "Guide to How 'Recent' Women Dress". Elegance has a timeless quality that stretches over centuries and the reality is that a smaller and smaller percentage of women today choose elegance over... what have you. That's exactly the point of the book: the average woman today is not really elegant. Boo-hoo. Cry me a river, but it's true. The trend is towards unformization, vulgarity, lack of individuality, plasticization, stultification. Your average "modern" woman (often equivalent to American or dressed in American style) may be comfortably dressed, sporty, trendy, sometimes stylish, rebellious, you name it - but one way or the other, the tendency for the masses is not towards elegance. Yeap...even if you see armies of women with trousers and high heals everywhere (or the particularly apalling jeans and high heals), even if it has become perfectly acceptable to dress like this, that STILL doesn't make such vulgar combinations "elegant". Call them modern or "in", but not elegant.
Elegance doesn't change much over the years and this is exactly why it does not matter that the book was first written in the 1960's (let alone that it was updated in 2003). If Americans were not so touchy about authoritative voices (is it some form of Simon-phobia or what?), they might actually be able to learn something from such books instead of getting all flustered and offended because the author "talked down" on them. Urgghhh...the reason why you feel she "talks down" is probably because YOU ARE "DOWN".
And by the way - major pleas for America:
1. Chapter "Daughters":
Can you please, please stop dressing your little girls either like drab, church-brainwashed puritans (see horribly long dresses) or like cheap, underage prostitutes begging for an increase in rates of pedophilia (see very short, tight skirts coupled with make-up, plastic Disney jewelry and heals?). This is a sacrilege to elegance and you know it. If you don't, maybe some "talking down on"...might do you some good.
2. Chapter "Shorts":
Can you please, please consider voting for a law suggested by the author? That is, sales people should not sell shorts to any woman without checking for ID/date of birth or to women over a certain number of pounds (and keep the standard figure low please). Yes, yes, yes - fuller, rounder women are perfectly fine. In fact, they are often more beautiful than the skinny, sylphide type; but why, or why do they HAVE TO wear shorts? "Because they're comfortable and all women should have the right to..." does not qualify as an acceptable answer. That's just the point: they shouldn't have the right to. Or if they should, the author and all such sane people should have the right to comment on how ugly shorts look on women over 16 or with thighs and legs less than perfect. Deal?
The images America features everywhere - of horrifically obese women in shorts - are grotesque to say the least. Shorts are far from necessary. If one does not EVER wear them, ONE will be just fine and will have lived a perfectly complete life. Let that be the loss.
3. Chapter "Bargains and Quantity"
Can you please, please stop getting in the check-out line at Marshalls, Ross, Wal-Mart and virtually all other cathedrals of miserably bad taste/ no taste consumption with 10-20 clothing items at once? Can you please open your eyes and realize that those are not "bargains"? Can you please stop believing in bargains altogether? Really. Regardless of how many items you buy, you still look bad. Cross my heart. The money you dump on those 10 clothing items that you want to use for constant changing or "never being seen dressed the same twice"...is exactly the same amount you would have paid for that one "decadent/expensive" item you think you could never afford. The Protestant ethic may be fine and dandy but why don't you apply its tenets of restraint and modesty to quantity instead of quality?
I could go on, because there is so much golden advice in this book that has been so drastically misunderstood or dismissed without substantive thought, but I choose to end the frustrated review here. All in all, this is the kind of advise most American women are in dire - and I mean DIRE!!! - need of. The choices you have are: learn from it and bring some much needed elegance into the scenery of this country; or get offended in American politically correct style, dismiss it as outdated/ antiquated and continue to contribute to the visual pollution.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Impractical
Comment: Unless you have tons of money, this books basic guide to elegance is lots of money and shopping all day. Save your money.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Archival appreciation, but not practical for 2009
Comment: I was salivating to read this little book of which I thought I would pluck many tried and true style gems. What a disapointment it was. The advice is extremely outdated, tho I love and adore the 40s, 50s, 60s. There are tons of ridgid, unapplicable fashion dos and don'ts in this book, but you won't get from it what you are hoping - and that's ways to look chic and smart. Buy it to read yesterday's quaint point of view on fashion, not a timeless view--and almost no practical applications for today. Matching your shoes to your bag is no longer one of fashion's ten commandments that must be religiously observed, and hardly helpful as a notion of what "must" be done. Telling women over 40 to dress in navy, brown, cream and to skip color and avoid black isn't acceptable concepts of aging stylishly any longer. Looking like the queen of England is no longer to what we aspire or hold up as respectable or fashionable. Style has opened up a whole new universe of choices and ideals since this came out decades ago. Following it for the most part will make you look dated -if not dowdy. The jargon used is that of a couture dressmaker and it's difficult to comprehend at times (tho I did learn a few things!) It's not a feel-good book, either, more of a 'slap your knuckles', 'put you in an old woolworth's box', book of fear experience. This book made me feel really bad, frankly. It's very represenative of the mindset and time in which it was composed. Fashion and style should an adventure. Not a life sentence on a drab death-row runway.
Far better is the great big, beautiful book, "Before You Put That On", by Lloyd Boston - that book will inspire, delight, and make you the artist of your own style without talking down to you at any age. You'll become excited in discovering who you are in Lloyd's book.
Skip "Guide to Elegance"'s slim volume - because dispite it's fetching, tiffany-inspired cover, it's been a whole new world and then some since this guide had any athority in the then-small, now-global world of personal style and expression for women--which I regret to say because no one wanted to love this book more than I did.
Customer Rating:
Summary: probably better for older ladies...
Comment: Although this book does contain some good information, it seems to be aimed more towards the 30-50ish crowd. There are some excellent tips in the book, so I do not regret buying it. Most of the info is common sense, but just in case, if you are really clueless, pick up this book...however, if you want something geared towards 18-29ish women, I recommend finding "How to Walk in High Heels" by Camilla Morton instead.
Customer Rating:
Summary: my bible for the past 30 years
Comment: I bought this book as a young teenager when it was first published. It has been my guidebook ever since. It lays down timeless principles of simplicity and elegance which, in this day and time, have been forgotten. Although some of the advice is a little outdated, the time has come to return to its eternal principles of dressing beautifully.
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