{"id":5324,"date":"2010-10-13T08:44:24","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T13:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=5324"},"modified":"2010-10-13T08:44:24","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T13:44:24","slug":"book-review-dreaming-of-dior-by-charlotte-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2010\/20101013-5324.htm","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: &#8220;Dreaming of Dior&#8221; by Charlotte Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Clothes horse. Fashion plate. Trendy.  Style watcher.  <\/p>\n<p>Words you won&#8217;t hear used to describe me.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a classic dresser, a fairly formal sort, with just a touch of whimsy.  Unlike many women, I don&#8217;t generally take pleasure in clothes shopping and couldn&#8217;t care less about the latest styles.<\/p>\n<p>But vintage clothing is one of my weaknesses.<\/p>\n<p>I have dozens of dresses culled from used stores that I proudly wear.  A 1940s gown, which I rarely have occasion to wear, not being used to formal dinners. A 1950s housewife&#8217;s dress.  A 1960s Jackie O sheath.  A shirt dress from the fifties or sixties.  A maxi (that doesn&#8217;t quite make maxi status on me and is therefore slated for conversion to a modest &#8220;mini&#8221;) from the sixties\/seventies.  I just adore vintage.<\/p>\n<p>So when I read <a href=\"http:\/\/bermudaonion.wordpress.com\/2010\/07\/29\/review-dreaming-of-dior\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bermuda Onion&#8217;s review<\/a> of <i>Dreaming of Dior<\/i>, I knew I wanted to take a look.  Thankfully, my library had a copy and I snatched it right up.<\/p>\n<p>The book contains illustrations of the stunning gowns from Doris Darnell&#8217;s collection&#8211;along with anecdotes about the former owners of each outfit.  The illustrations alone are worth looking at&#8211;but the stories only make it better.  <\/p>\n<p>The stories feature a jet-setting crowd, traveling the world, meeting foreign dignitaries, dropping names left and right.  It&#8217;s a world completely foreign to me, but one that I enjoy reading about nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the anecdotes reminded me of a favorite memoir of mine&#8211;Letitia Baldridge&#8217;s <i>A Lady, First<\/i>.  I love those stories of diplomacy and etiquette and dinners that require fancy dress.  <i>Dreaming of Dior<\/i> is just the sort of book for a story-loving, vintage-clothes-obsessed dreamer like myself.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>Rating:<\/b> 4 stars <br \/>\n<b>Category:<\/b> Fashion History<br \/>\n<b>Synopsis:<\/b> Charlotte Smith displays the fabulous collection of vintage outfits she inherited from her godmother&#8211;and tells the stories that go along with the gowns. <br \/>\n<b>Recommendation:<\/b> Lovely illustrations of lovely gowns with entertaining anecdotes to go along.  This was a beautiful little book.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Visit my <a href=\"books\/index.htm\">books page<\/a> for more reviews and notes.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clothes horse. Fashion plate. Trendy. Style watcher. Words you won&#8217;t hear used to describe me. I&#8217;m a classic dresser, a fairly formal sort, with just a touch of whimsy. Unlike many women, I don&#8217;t generally take pleasure in clothes shopping and couldn&#8217;t care less about the latest styles. But vintage clothing is one of my &#8230; <a title=\"Book Review: &#8220;Dreaming of Dior&#8221; by Charlotte Smith\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2010\/20101013-5324.htm\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Book Review: &#8220;Dreaming of Dior&#8221; by Charlotte Smith<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[36],"tags":[48,226,363,1197],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5324"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}