The Meaning of Sunglasses; and a Guide to Almost All Things Fashionable, Hadley Freeman

Alexsandro Palombo, Marge Simpson Loves Coco Chanel, 2012

 (November 5)  Simon Doonan says, “I shrieked my way through this book” and, while I didn’t shriek my way through this book or shriek at all, girl is a clever writer.

Sample:

Prada styles itself as the label that's okay for intellectual feminists to like. You have to wonder how precarious a woman's self-image must be to be damaged by showing an interest in fashion, and it is on this kind of knife-edge, poised between careful cerebralism and mocking artificiality, that Prada balances.

Prada's reputation as the acceptably intellectual label stems primarily from the designer Miuccia Prada. Rare is the profile of Mrs. Prada, as she is known, despite Prada actually being her maiden name, that does not make reference to her university degree and youthful dalliance with communism, as if they were proof of her unique cerebralism. As for the former, this carries the not inaccurate suggestion that everyone else in fashion is an uneducated cave dweller who thinks Chekhov is a pattern. In regard to the latter, some might question whether a move from communism to fashion design is more suggestive of fluid personal values rather than a show of deep intellect, but that belief seems to belong to the minority, judging from the tones of awe in which this biographical tidbit is constantly repeated. 

And she says many profound things about fashion and feminism… and did well at being both British and American.

Snark level? Very high.