some new favorites

Don't expect any vintage hair or makeup tutorials anytime soon on this blog - I am all thumbs when it comes to these things.  (If you are looking for that sort of thing may I suggest the very excellent Lisa Freemont Street.  She does some pretty amazing hair tutorials which I can only dream of one day having the patience to do.  At the moment, this sort of thing is more my line.)

Anyway, this post is not about hairstyle tutorials, it's about books.  What you can expect from this blog are books and lots of them! I have a huge collection of tomes, old and new, (sadly most of them are in storage in L.A.) and I am constantly adding to it.

Today I want to feature two of the latest additions to my hoard.

If you are not familiar with this excellent series, it started two years ago with the 1920s, then, logically enough, proceeded to the 1930s and 1940s.  A quick search on Amazon has informed me that they're going to be skipping ahead thirty years and publishing the 1970s next.

 I'd been stalking these books for quite a while now and the 1930s being my decade of fashion preference, I finally decided to buy that edition as a birthday present to myself last month. I liked it so much that last weekend when I saw the 40s version online for £5 (!!!!) even Mr B (who, in general, is amusingly grumbly about my book habit) said "you'd better get that". . . and so I did.

 I cannot rave about them enough.  These books are AMAZING!!!! (many exclamation points most definitely deserved and required).  With 400+ pages of fashion goodness in each, they can also double as free weights were I to take that sort of thing up.

If you are a patternmaker, (which I am, in training, if not always in practice) there are tons of fashion illustrations that you should be able to copy without too much trouble should you choose.  In fact my favorite thing so far has been examining the croquis and imagining what the flat pattern would have to look like.

I'll just end by saying I totally recommend this series.  They are worth buying at full price and most definitely worth picking up if you can find them cheaper, so keep your eyes peeled.  The 20's book is on my list for someday future purchasing, but for now there is more than enough here to keep me occupied for some time.