Réné Gruau, La Cigarette, 1983
(December 11) I liked this quite a bit and am surprised by that! First, I was surprised that this book was so popular… I was always kind of “meh” on Garance Doré's blog… I liked her aesthetic but didn’t register how well done the writing was… now that I've read a whole book of it at once, I've fallen for the charm and can see the appeal… but initially it surprised me that the library already had copies circulating when I looked it up, whereas Alyson Walsh’s Style Forever and Lisa Eldridge’s Face Paint hadn’t been ordered yet. So Garance Doré is incredibly popular. So I lined up for the library copy.
Charming: even though I read a lot of these blogs and these kinds of books, this book had a few great little tips I’d never heard before and am glad to have,* and I learned a few more details about different fashion-related things, like the names of the various Ray Ban sunglasses, e.g. I knew “Aviator” and I knew “Wayfarer”... but I never knew “Clubmaster.”
I like Garance Doré's take on “being French” or dressing like a Parisian, which is such a hot topic right now: she doesn’t exalt either the French or the Americans but she does find both funny and she identifies the points of view that are completely opposite -- useful to know.
But mostly I fell in love with her voice and her perspective, which had never impressed me that much before from the blog. She’s kind of wise. She pays lip service to fashion and beauty, but mostly she wants to talk about manners, etiquette, social elegance, strength of character… good topics for real human beings.
I love the way she draws… I always liked that about her… the clean, spare sexiness of her lines… but I eventually realized it’s a style she stole a bit from Réné Gruau.
* I no longer have these, three years later when I actually post the review.
No comments:
Post a Comment