Reviews! Fashion!

Japanese Fashion Magazines, various.

I love Japanese fashion magazines! These have names like "Cutie" and are full of clothes that you just can't buy in the UK like dresses with 12 pockets and amazing shoes and every colour of everything!! (A.A are about the best place for plenty of colour options but still not enough choice!!) The only bad thing about these magazines is the fact I can't read them. But this is more than made up for by educational inserts like this-

Sex education diagrams should always be that cute!

The Tokyo Look Book by Philomena Keet.
This book is the next step for fans of "Fruits" and"Fresh Fruits" It contains the same sort of photos but with descriptions of the various fashion trends and shops in Tokyo. My favourite bit shows a picture of someone's phone with about a million phone charms- like mine! (I didn't get the idea from here though, my brain must have picked up psychic trend waves from Japan!!)

A Century of Fashion by Francois Baudot.
I bought this book because it was another 30p library discard bargain! It is actually pretty good with some cool photos in and a general history of fashion. I was interested by the tiny part on Coco Chanel because I'm looking forward to the new film starring Audrey Tautou (out soon! trailer look! AND she's in the Chanel No. 5 advert too!) It's a good book for photos but for more detailed information on fashion history I think there are better books.

From A to Biba, The Autobiography of Barbara Hulanicki
I originally borrowed from the library but thought it was so good that I then ordered it from amazon. The library copy was a much fancier hardback one with pink page edging (expensive to buy so I opted for the paperback) As the life story of Barbara Hulanicki it is the complete history from Biba from her first fashion competition design win to her mail order business then through the various shops. I won't ruin the end but it is nice to read now knowing she has recently gone on to make a bit of a Biba comeback with the release of her Topshop range and I hear there is a film about her soon. I just wish more original Biba (not crappy 80s/90s Biba) came up on Ebay at affordable prices!! but I guess everyone loved the clothes so much they wore them until they were unwearable. Bah!

Icons-50s Fashion Vintage Fashion and Beauty Ads Ed. Jim Heinmann
I have always avoided these £3.99 Tashen themed books (they do lots of art ones and various others) but I'm not sure why because this book is really good. I love 50s style fashion and old advertisements and this is a combination of the two. It has some awesome pages such as; Be-Bop Glasses and Glamorous Lingerie.

Subculture The Meaning Of Style by Dick Hebdige.

I'm pulling this expression in this photo because when I took the picture I thought this book was pretty boring and long winded, trying to be all scholarly about the aspects of style and fashion it covers. But since then I gave it another chance and it was interesting the second time (I think I wasn't concentrating before maybe...) It is a pretty good book for anyone studying fashion who needs a good place to get some quotes from. I enjoyed the glam rock part especially. Not as fun as actually going shopping though...