Weekend Review: The Last Collection

The Last Collection / Jeanne Mackin
New York, NY : Berkley, 2019
340 p.

Another novel with fashion at its heart, this one was a clear winner for me. Lily Sutter is a young widow, and a teacher who leaves her post when her brother Charlie writes that he needs her in Paris. She's also an artist, and her eager rediscovery of Paris in 1938 is full of colour and painting and fashion...alongside the looming threat of war. 

She arrives in Paris to find that her charming brother wants to offer her a dress by Chanel, but she prefers the more artistic flair of Schiaparelli. Charlie's married girlfriend Ania, a rich society wife, follows Lily's lead and starts wearing the upstart designer's clothing, putting Lily in the middle of a rivalry between Chanel and Schiaparelli. This rivalry is not only about their differing views of the role of fashion, but is exacerbated by their views on prewar politics. 

I'm not always impressed by books that take real life people as characters; I find it akin to stealing someone's life in many cases. But here the two designers, while important to the story, don't seem to act outside of their historically known characters. And the author focuses much more on Lily's journey and how these two people are important to her story than on trying to recreate the internal lives of these real people. And I found that it worked because of this focus.

The emotional arc of the story is all Lily -- the early loss of her husband, her relationship to her brother, the role she plays when she gets a job at Schiaparelli's salon and also interacts with Chanel, and her own burgeoning love affair that is complicated by the presence of Nazis in France. The war is a key part of the book, but I still wouldn't call this a War Story. It's a different angle on this time in history, as Lily, an American, sees things from the outside. 

I really enjoyed the solid historical context of this story, as well as the accomplished writing. Mackin tells this story without sentimentalizing or exaggerating historical facts. She also represents the nuance in the decisions that both designers made at the start of the war, and the unexpected effects of their decisions on others -- for example, that Chanel closed up overnight to remove to a hotel with her German officer lover for the duration of the war, which immediately put 200 employees out of work at a difficult time. That was one aspect I hadn't immediately considered, being more focused on Chanel's association with the Germans in the war. 

The strength of the book lies in the focus on Lily's storyline; it has the emotional weight and complexity to stand on its own. The author could have invented designers or even had Lily working at something else and it still would have worked without the 'celebrity' aspect. Although I must say I really liked that part of things. Lily, as an artist, sees in colour and feeling, and her impressions of the fashions and the fabrics were satisfying to read. She refers to colours as leitmotifs in both designers' lives (Schiaparelli is synonymous with Shocking Pink while Chanel is known for her Little Black Dress, for example), and the real collections of both designers in these years are discussed and described. Lily also ties colour to emotion, reflecting her own interactions with Paris and her new life. There is a lot of engaging description of outfits, designs and even Lily's own paintings, with colour and line at the forefront. 

While there are many serious and difficult moments in this book, it ends with a satisfying resolution that won't leave you depressed for days -- it's not that kind of WWII novel. It's a smart, fashionable story with a strong emotional heart. If you have someone in your life who enjoys well structured historical fiction and loves fashion and/or art, I'd highly recommend this as a perfect holiday gift. 

 

Weekend Review: The Battle of Versailles

The Battle of Versailles / Robin Givhan
NY: Flatiron, c2015
320 p.

A story of fashion history today! This book looks at the famous "Battle of Versailles", a fundraiser fashion show pitting the top French and American designers against each other, in November 1973. The designers represented were: Americans Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston, and Stephen Burrows and French designers Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, Emanuel Ungaro, and Marc Bohan of Christian Dior. You'll notice only one woman and she had to suffer egregious sexism.

Written by Robin Givhan, an award-winning fashion journalist, this story is told with clarity and verve. She approaches it from all angles; chapters on the designers, the organizers, and even the models illuminate this one night and mean that there is enough context to get a whole book out of a single event, with only the barest glimmer of repetition in the telling. 

Conceived of as a fundraiser to restore the Palace of Versailles, nobody had much expectation that the American contingent was going to be close to the French in terms of style and glamour. And the back story certainly shows how the French designers had the best of everything -- scheduling for their run-throughs, sets, music, and much much longer presentations. 

But against expectation, the American shows with their looseness and modern music and fantastic individuals as models (ten of whom were Black) took the night. The energy and speed of their presentations, the modern designs that captured the 70s spirit, and the way in which the models moved and danced on the runway unlike the static traditional presentations of the French designers -- all this led to the celebrity/rich person loaded audience response of loud cheering and excitement, also quite out of character. 

This night changed the perception of American fashion vs. French fashion. No longer did French fashion dominate the imagination as the only source of style, now there was an American spirit as well. Givhan notes that this event really changed the direction of the fashion world, and spends a lot of time going into every aspect of it to show how its effects rippled out in so many ways. You might think that looking so deeply into things like the funding and organization of an international event, spearheaded by American fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, might be dull, but it's not. 

If you're interested in fashion or cultural history, this is a good read. There are a few flaws; because of the focus on this one particular moment, larger issues raised by things like the presence of the Black models or the sexist treatment of Anne Klein aren't expanded upon in a wider context. And while she does describe some of the designers and the way they planned their shows, she doesn't really call anyone out for their atrocious behaviours. Also, there are no colour images in a book about the impact of colourful, bright, energetic American fashion on a more prim fashion world. 

Overall, however, I enjoyed this one and learned a little more about a subject I'm always interested in.