Kim Johnson Gross

What to Wear could be compressed into a long magazine article telling women who have gotten older or gained weight how to dress. The author continually reminds us that she worked in the fashion industry and constantly moans about having gotten old and fat. It gets a little tiresome. Unless someone is as clueless as the folks who used to appear on What not to Wear you can figure this out. In these pandemic days when no one wears anything but sweat pants I felt I had to read this to hope for a return to fashionista shallowness.… (més)

I would recommend this book for women who are menopausal. The author does spend quite a bit of time focusing on her own issues about menopause versus giving advice. However, the advice is useful and I would recommend the book based on her ideas of how to critically look at your wardrobe, your career, and how to dress for the rest of your life. The quotes from other women interspersed throughout are sometimes insightful, other times annoying. The author's recommendations for dressing your age and for your body type are helpful. Overall, recommended.… (més)

The beautiful illustrations of men's haberdashery produced for "Esquire" magazine between the 1930s and 50s by Laurence Fellows, Leslie Saalburg, and Robert Goodman remain vital references for men of classic tastes today. From Alan Flusser's great books to various menswear blogs, the attentive reader still encounters them all the time. That's what makes "Men in Style," assembled by Woody Hochswender, such an essential reference work ... and what makes it so unfortunate that available copies are evidently so hard to find.

While great for reference and education, though, what's surprising about "Men in Style" is how entertaining a read it is. That's because -- unlike many of the others who reproduce these images -- Hochswender has included the editorial copy that accompanied the illustrations as they appeared in the magazine. As a professional copywriter myself, it was a joy to read (as Hochswender describes it in his introduction) "the crisply explanatory writing, dictatorial without being annoying, [arising] from a time when standards of behavior were inextricably linked to conventions in clothes. The editors were extremely uncompromising in their point of view, but at least they had one." Arnold Gingrich, founding editor of "Esquire," apparently produced much of this copy himself in the early years, and is to be commended for his distinctive and entertaining voice.

If there's anything wrong with this book, it has to be that it's far too short. Hochswender had two or three decades worth of "Esquire" to work from, and I wish he had picked two or three times as many of these illustrations to include. Still, it's easy to tell someone else they should have worked harder, and I have no complaints with the outstanding work he did do. Among men who appreciate and try to maintain classic style -- a Nockian Remnant in a world where every day is "Casual Friday" -- "Men in Style" is a book to return to again and again for both spiritual uplift and practical application.… (més)