Cashmere: A French Passion 1800-1880

If you are expecting this book to provide a study on the origins, the development, and the use of cashmere through the ages, you will be disappointed. If you are expecting a scholarly study of cashmere, in particular in reference to the shawl, then you will be delighted.

Cashmere might be a bit of a misnomer as Ms. Levi-Strauss examines the fiber in terms of its very specific application and use and its part in the history of the cashmere shawl. One might almost say that this is a treatise on the cashmere shawl.

Since the examination of the subject is almost clinical in its detail, the reader must be prepared for a very historical and well-substantiated saga delivered in an extremely factual, dry manner. With this approach, Ms. Levi-Strauss affords the reader an almost OCD accounting and timetable concerning this precious material.

Cashmere: A French Passion 1800–1880 is not a run of the mill, easy breezy fashion focused picture book that readers have become so accustomed to; instead this is most definitely for the fashion minded who enjoy a much more intellectual approach to fashion. As you might have guessed, this is a book that requires reading and not just looking at the pretty photos.

If one is to judge this book on its physical attributes, then Cashmere would certainly qualify for a top contender in a beauty contest. The reproductions and the quality are superb as is the overall presentation of the volume. Cashmere is a fashion book that rates a place in your fashion library as it is educational as well as esthetically pleasing.