Weekend Review: The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon

 

The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon / Sarah Steele
London: Headline, c2020.
416 p.

This is a typical kind of British family saga, in that there are multiple generations involved, family secrets, and a young woman at the heart of it all. But it's also particularly fascinating since it includes two women who are fashion sewists, lots of talk of dresses, fabrics and vintage sewing -- the structure of the book depends on it. 

As the book begins, Flo is at her grandmother's funeral. She was mostly raised by her gentle grandparents, so this is particularly wrenching for her. Also, her marriage is cracking up due to a miscarriage she had in the last year. All the sorrow is getting to be too much for her. 

She decides to stay at her grandmother's house after the funeral for some alone time, and wandering about, looking for an old sewing machine she knows must be there somewhere (Flo is one of the sewists in the book) she stumbles across a box of vintage patterns in her grandmother's bedroom closet. Flo has never seen it before, and as she opens it, she discovers a seamstress named Nancy - who is unknown to her. 

Nancy is from her grandmother's generation; the reader certainly knows a lot more about Nancy Moon than Flo does. It's a long trek for her to find out more, and that is what the book is all about. Flo's husband goes to American for a teaching gig, leaving her at loose ends; with the encouragement of her friend Jem, she decides to travel across Europe, following Nancy's path as much as she can from what she can decipher from the sewing patterns, which have postcards, ticket stubs and fabric tucked into the envelopes. She also decides she is going to duplicate the dresses that Nancy made so that she can wear them on her trip. 

While we don't see or hear much about Flo's process of making the dresses (pretty quickly I'd say) we do follow her to Paris, and then to Venice and beyond, as she tries to replicate Nancy's movements and research where and what and why. Each section, based on a location, moves back and forth between Flo's era and Nancy's, and we get to engage with both of them and their varied experience in different decades. It's also interesting to read it this way, as the reader can follow Flo's investigations and see whether she's on the right track or not. 

I enjoyed the descriptions of the dresses that open some of the chapters, and the discussion of style and fabrics and individuals who are highlighted because of the statements they make with their wardrobe choices. The author has included a gallery on her website that shows all the vintage covers of the patterns she discusses in the book, if you want a good look at the outfits that both Nancy and Flo are making. 

There a few moments in this book in which coincidences strain credulity, but overall it was an engaging read with some good character development. And the settings are also quite lovely to read about! If you like books about family secrets and sewing, I'd definitely recommend you give this one a try. 

Weekend Review: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

 

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris / Paul Gallico
NY: Bloomsbury, 2022, c1963
320 p.

I've always known about this book but didn't read it until recently; I finally picked it up when this movie cover edition crossed my desk at the library. It's a fairly short book but it was a delight to read. It was published in the 60s but there isn't too much in it that is terribly dated to ruin it, which is always nice. 

Mrs. Harris is a London char-woman who is always positive and down-to-earth. She has her regulars who she cleans for; some are lovely and some are, well, not so much. But when she's cleaning Lady Dant's apartment, she sees the most beautiful thing she's ever seen in her life: a Dior dress. She determines at that moment that she is going to have one, despite how ridiculous it sounds. 

And so she embarks on a savings journey, squirrelling away every extra penny and even going to the track. After two years of determination, she heads to Paris on her quest. But there is so much she doesn't know, like that you don't just walk into Dior like it's Woolworths and pick up a dress off the rack. But fortune favours the bold, and despite barriers in her way, she is put in the path of so many people who decide to help this charming lady. And she passes any help and good fortune she has on to others, too, taking joy in the small things of life and valuing love and connection. 

There are some events near the end that I wished the author had decided differently about, but in the main this is a charming book with a sense of joy and community, leaving you with a definite feel-good vibe. I thought it was full of the delight of Paris and of course of Dior and dressmaking in general -- there are employees and customers of Dior who befriend and help Mrs. Harris, and even a cameo by the great man himself. There are dreamy descriptions of dresses and fabrics and ateliers, as well as of the beautiful streets and markets of Paris. It's so lovely. 

I enjoyed this one so much that I immediately watched the new movie. Unfortunately it doesn't have the same uplifting charm; it highlights a little more of the disappointments and dissatisfactions in the story. It was a good film and Leslie Manville was great as Mrs. Harris, but there is no real 'edge' to the book while there is in the film, and perhaps it was because I had just finished the book two days before the film that I wasn't completely taken with it. I'd say that with this one, as with most book to film experiences, be sure to read the book first if you can ;) This edition also included a second novel, Mrs. Harris Goes to New York, but that one is missable. There is none of the charm of dressmaking and Paris, and it definitely loses something for it, becoming more sentimental than delightful. Stick with Paris and Dior and you'll enjoy the reading!

Weekend Review: A Dress of Violet Taffeta

 

A Dress of Violet Taffeta / Tessa Arlen
NY: Berkley, c2022.
335 p.

This novel is based on the life of Lady Duff Gordon, otherwise known as British fashion designer Lucille. I've always been interested in this figure, the sister of sensational writer Elinor Glyn, as they have a Canadian connection. Their mother was Canadian, and they both spent some childhood years living in Guelph with their maternal grandparents after their father died. When their mother remarried, they returned to England. 

In any case, this book focuses on Lucy at the moment that her first marriage is breaking down. Her husband James Wallace was a drunk and a philanderer, and he walked out on her and their daughter Esme. She, somewhat scandalously at the time, filed for divorce. But to support herself and her daughter, she started designing and selling dresses from their flat. 

This took off and she kept growing, with her finger on the pulse of fashion -- less restrictive clothing, less corsetry, lower necklines, and skimpy & silky underclothes. She was a hit. The book focuses quite a bit on the business side of things, describing the dresses and clients well. There is also an assistant who is important in the book, who is an amalgamation of two real people in Lucy's life. The character is interesting, so I was disappointed to learn she was a mashup of sorts. 

Lucy also meets a Scottish lord, Cosmo Duff Gordon, who she eventually marries. They end up travelling on the Titanic, and both survived, though they were accused of bribery afterward as the way they survived. They were completely cleared of the accusations in an inquiry, but Cosmo never got over the character assassination during the trial, and they separated a few years later, he retiring back to Scotland and Lucy spending much time in New York where she'd launched a shop. 

The book was mostly interesting, though it did drag on a bit. I enjoyed the descriptions of the fashions and the sewing, as well as the actual running of a business by a woman at this time. The problem with the book is one I often have with these kinds of stories: the reliance on real people as fictional characters. I don't mind real people showing up as side characters, or having a walk-through role. But when they are the main characters and their motives and personal thoughts are created by a fiction writer, it makes me uncomfortable. Where does truth end? It's not always clear what the author is basing their interpretation of a character on. And I found that in this book, the author tries very hard to create a great love affair between Lucy and Cosmo that I just don't think is based in real life. She focuses heavily on romance, perhaps because this book falls into that kind of genre. But I feel like Lucy would have been a much more self-focused, pragmatic person, as shown by the couple's eventual separation as well. 

In any case, I enjoyed the dressmaking parts, found the writing adequate, and was a little unsettled by the heavy use of real people as main characters. Despite the fact that Lady Duff Gordon had an eventful life, full of moments perfect for a novelist, I am not sure that in the end I wouldn't have just preferred a good biography. 

Weekend Review: Clothes-Pegs

 

Clothes-Pegs / Susan Scarlett
London: Dean Street Press, 2022, c1939.
206 p.

This is a reprint of the first romance by Susan Scarlett, the pen name of well known author Noel Streatfield. She wrote a dozen romances under this name, and I was obviously drawn to this one! 

It's the story of Annabel Brown, a nice girl from a middle class English family who works as a seamstress at Bertna's, a higher end fashion house, to help with family finances. Annabel is also young, slender and lovely, which works in her favour when one of the mannequins (models) from downstairs quits, and the owner needs a quick substitution. She decides to pull Annabel from the sewing room to the front lines, so to speak, and gives her a quick training to become of one of the four models showing off new collections. 

Two of these models are catty, the other is fairly mysterious but kind to Annabel. And on one of Annabel's first turns in her new job, she sees wealthy Lord David de Bett in the audience and falls for him at first sight. Of course she also catches his eye, despite the fact that he's there with the Honourable Octavia Glaye, who isn't very honourable in real life; she is really quite awful! This scene reminds me a little of the beginning of The Grace Kelly Dress by Brenda Janowitz. 

A cross-class romance ensues, with ups and downs and misunderstandings, as in all good romance novels. But Annabel's goodness overcomes class lines, as well as David's obsession with the madonna/whore complex. He is the sticking point in this book for me; he's not good enough for Annabel, jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions about Annabel near the end and only relenting when he finds out the truth accidentally from someone else. It felt a little icky for a reader of today, really. Other than his character, though, this story was charming - the Brown family is the heart of it and Annabel's work as a seamstress and as a mannequin are both frothy with clothing description and the way clothes make a woman feel. Bertna's was a delight to read about and while the romance felt a little clunky, the rest of it - especially the family interactions - was enjoyable and engaging. Definitely worth a look. I found this one through my library's online collection so perhaps you will be able to as well! 

Weekend Review: Behind the Seams

 

I first encountered Esme Young via the Great British Sewing Bee, and had a vague idea that she was a fashion person brought on to the show. I feel some affinity with her as a fellow short person with a similar hairstyle, too ;) 

So when I saw this title I was very interested, and fortunately a friend gave me a copy! I really enjoyed reading this relaxed memoir. It has stories about her life from young girl to present day, but it's not just a chronological progression. It covers various times in more detail; the highlights are her years running Swanky Modes, a design house/storefront with 3 friends -- they were one of the first to use Lycra as a fashion fabric, not just for workout gear -- as well as her work with Central St Martins as a pattern cutter instructor. And of course, there are the years of the Great British Sewing Bee! 

The style is quite relaxed and fun; if you are familiar with her from the Sewing Bee, you'll recognize her 'voice' as it is the same in her writing. She has some great anecdotes from her time in the fashionable crowd in London, especially in the years of Swanky Modes - like meeting David Bowie, or even the small, homely details of how she built relationships with the children of her business partners. I found this different from other fashion memoirs in that she had a different relationship to fashion -- she wasn't a trained designer trying to make it in couture, she was a rather down to earth pattern maker who decided to start a boutique with three of her friends and just had fun with it.  

And sewists will enjoy reading about her pattern work and the way it shaped her career. At Central St Martins she mentored designer Ashish Gupta, and talks about their work together even now -- one of her most memorable outfits on the Bee was a sequined granny square pattern jacket made by Ashish so it all makes sense! I enjoyed this story of a woman who followed her passions and did it all on her own. She talks about work as a key element of her life, and when she was asked to be on the Bee she seemed surprised that she was invited to audition; there was no snobbiness or sense that she was assured anything due to her history or connections. And she seems happy with this new gig - as she says, she wants (and needs) to work until she dies, and this is just one more new experience for her that has brought opportunity. 

This was an enjoyable read. The tone felt very natural and entertaining, and I learned quite a bit about her life, and fashion in England over the past few decades. There's nothing too dark in it, and you get a sense of her habit of just getting on with things. Recommended for any fan of English fashion personalities or the Great British Sewing Bee! 

Weekend Review: A Single Thread

 

A Single Thread / Tracy Chevalier
NY: Viking, c2019.
321 p.

This is a novel full of details about canvaswork embroidery. Really! (note the cover design). But it's also a novel about a single woman in post war England -- a "surplus woman" trying to build her own life as a single working woman outside the traditional bounds of expected early marriage.

It's 1932, and 38 yr old Violet Speedwell has just moved out of her overbearing mother's house to the nearby town of Winchester, home of a great cathedral. She lost both her older brother and her fiancé in the Great War, and has been caring for her mother ever since. But now she's had enough and finally manages a transfer to the Winchester office of the insurance company where she works as a typist. 

Winchester isn't far away, and she still visits her mother weekly. But she's also building her own life; living in a boarding house, penny pinching to eat and live, and discovering the Broderers group at the Cathedral by chance. Even though she's never been much of a needleworker, she joins in to help make kneelers and cushions for the Cathedral, to leave a trace of herself somewhere. This group of women also becomes her social group and support in many ways. There is much time in the novel devoted to explaining the designs, the actual stitches and colours, and the designer, the great Louisa Pesel, all based in the real embroidery history of Winchester Cathedral. 

At the Cathedral, Violet also meets a bell ringer, Arthur Knight, married and much older than she is. But there's a spark there. The novel explores the possibility of a relationship like that in this era, as well as showing other concerns that single women had to face, when Violet gains a stalker. This theme was a bit disturbing, and I'm not sure it was essential. If this character had been removed from the novel, the story wouldn't have lost anything, in my opinion. Reading this book over the past few weeks when so much violence against women was happening in our world, I found it particularly disturbing. 

The detail given to embroidery in this novel is also given to bell ringing, a particularly English occupation. This reminded me of Dorothy Sayers' The Nine Tailors, and just as in that book, I glazed over during the details of bell ringing technique. Perhaps others might do the same during the embroidery parts, but not me, and I hope not the readers at this blog! 

The book is well constructed, moving along a good clip, and bringing up so many concerns in a single woman's life. Dependency, the expectations to care for parents, money, companionship, meaning, children and lack of, social constrictions -- all were quite naturally enfolded into Violet's story. Some of her choices might not be the expected ones, or ones that a reader would choose on their own behalf, but she's a realistic and believable character nonetheless. The interplay between Violet and her brother and his family, and her mother, was delicately balanced and highlighted how Violet's life and her options differed from her sister-in-law's 'married with children' life trajectory. I found it an engaging read that I enjoyed overall. 

Weekend Review: Anna, Where Are You?

 

Anna, Where Are You? / Patricia Wentworth
NY: HarperPerennial, 1991, c1951.
278 p.

Now this is a book with a tenuous connection to sewing; in fact, it's really more connected to embroidery - perfect for the last weekend of National Embroidery Month! But I just read it and really enjoyed it, and thought that other sewists may enjoy the mystery as well as the textile arts content.

This is a title in Wentworth's Miss Silver series. Although Wentworth is a little less well known than other Golden Age mystery writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, or Margery Allingham, I think she's just as good. And she was very prolific, so I have a lot more of her writing ahead of me. Her amateur detective Miss Silver is an elderly, dowdy ex-governess who spends a lot of time knitting, but always figures out the crime. Her skill of observing while being ignored as an old lady is her secret superpower -- and if she seems similar to Miss Marple, just remember that Miss Silver came first ;)

In this book, governess Anna Ball has gone missing. She was seen leaving her latest job at Deepe House, but disappeared after that. She hasn't written to her oldest (and only) friend, Thomasina Elliot, which is very strange behaviour. In her worry, Thomasina hires Miss Silver to find Anna. 

Miss Silver's old friend Detective Inspector Frank Abbott is also interested in this case, because there have been other strange happenings at Deep End, where Anna was working. The old manor house has been turned into an artist colony of sorts, with a handful of eccentrics living there; Miss Silver determines that the best way to find out what is going on is to revert to her original occupation as a governess, and takes on the care of the three wild children of Deepe House.

The colony is where the embroidery comes in. While Miss Silver is continually knitting, at Deepe House we find an astrologer/herbalist, a psychic, two sisters who weave, a reclusive bird-watcher, and the art embroiderer that particularly interested me. All of these characters are a bit larger than life, and Wentworth pokes holes in pretension quite sharply. The head of the colony, Mr. Craddock, believes in freedom and not constraining children's behaviour -- unless of course it annoys him in which case it must stop immediately. So his three stepchildren run wild, and their poor mother is worn out by doing all the work of the colony, since of course her freedom isn't important. 

Miss Silver comes into this strange setting and must figure out what has happened to Anna; but the story is much more than that. It's dark, complicated, a little more dangerous than earlier stories. There is psychological and emotional neglect and abuse, secrets everywhere, a crumbling manor house with locked wings, and characters who are not what they seem. As usual with these stories, there is also a romantic theme, but it's not overly romantic in this one; in fact, I don't give the two 'lovers' much chance of happiness, myself. Their attraction is shown by their continuous arguing over everything. Tiring indeed! 

The descriptions of the embroidery shops that both Augustus Remington, the embroider, and Miss Silver frequent in the little nearby town are interesting. As Miss Silver says, "fancy work shops are often run in quite an easy-going way. It is considered a refined occupation by those who have had no business training."

Augustus brings a piece of his work to a tea gathering at one point, and it shows the kind of embroidery he does, which seems of a slightly earlier period. 

He waved the tambour frame at Miss Gwyneth and dropped his voice to a low and confidential tone. "My latest composition."

"What is it, Augustus?"

Both the Miss Tremletts peered at the fine stretched canvas upon which there was depicted a dark grey cloud tinged with pink, a human eye surrounded by three sunflower heads, and a twining plant with scarlet berries. The eye had been completed, but only one of the sunflowers and part of the trailing plant. The cloud was in a fairly advanced state. As an example of the embroiderer's art it stood high, a fact immediately pointed out by Miranda...

"But what does it mean?" repeated the Miss Tremletts, both speaking together. 

Mr. Remington appeared to wave the question away. 

"That is surely for you to say. I conceive the idea -- I endeavour to give it form and substance. It is not for me to supply the perceptive intelligence as well. Beauty is given to the world -- it is for the world to receive it." He flung himself into a chair as he spoke, put a couple of stitches into one of the sunflowers, and murmured in a languid voice, "The inspiration fails..."

If you enjoy a good retro English mystery like I do, I recommend this one -- it's clever, wry, and also quite non-cozy. Miss Silver knits and cares for the three children of the house, but don't be lulled into thinking that this story is simply a twee cozy tale. It isn't. There is real violence in it, and some thought-provoking themes, and it's full of questions. Why does Mrs. Craddock put up with this life? Who are all these people, really, behind their personas? Why do so many women adore angry men? And of course, where is Anna?