The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish

“The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish is far more educational than relevant or amusing.”

The title of this book, The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish, evokes a plethora of imaginings as to how the topic will be explored and discussed. Yet the approach that never occurs to the reader is one that is taken: pedantic and ennui inducing.

This is not to say that author Przybyszewski does not offer many points of interest and enlightenment when it comes to the subject of fashion and its ever changing ways. It’s just that she gets lost in the scholarly and historic points rather than the practical and real life aspects of fashion and style.

The most interesting aspect of the book is this group women who went by the name of “the dress doctors” who were pioneers of home fashion; these women proscribed the correct way to dress and wholeheartedly endorsed home sewing. The so called “dress doctors” were scholarly, well educated women who took it upon themselves to publish and preach the gospel of fashion according to their “bible.” This, as far as I know, has never been explored or written about in any other fashion book.

The lesson one gleans with The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish is that fashion cannot be circumscribed entirely by scholarly or analytical research, which here imply that fashion was and is a static concept removed from the humans who make it happen. Fashion is an ever changing concept that morphs with our perceptions of what constitutes beauty or fashion according to the times in which we live. In essence, what was or might have been considered wildly au courant in 1964 is not likely considered chic in 2014. Thus it holds that the reverse cannot be true: that fashion can be circumscribed alone by fashion “doctors.”

The takeaway here is simple: The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish is far more educational than relevant or amusing. It is an extremely dry read with excessive documentation and reference to long outdated theories. This is not an easy, breezy book that encourages repeat readings.

One must always remember that fashion can be expounded upon but not taught like a textbook—and the same goes for style.