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subscribe to style file blog via RSSdressing the part
January 15, 2008 9:48 am
If the title, “Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife,” doesn’t stop you in your tracks, some of the tips in designer Anne Fogarty’s 1959 prefeminist fashion-advice chestnut surely will. Consider this line from the chapter entitled “Am Wife, Will Travel”: “I would personally rather stay home than travel with three pairs of shoes. Last year, for a ten-day rest at Boca Raton, I brought eighteen dresses and twenty pairs of shoes.” The book’s just been re-released by Glitterati, with a new introduction by Rosemary Feitelberg (Style.com was ahead of the curve on this one—we included “Wife Dressing” in our recent roundup of how-to books). “You have to wonder if Anne Fogarty wasn’t in on the joke,” Feitelberg says. “She talks about all this stuff, but she was a working woman with a successful career. She had a weekly radio show, she made store appearances. This kind of thing is common today, but she was a real go-getter in her era.” Whether Fogarty, who was three times a wife, meant it or not, reading about choosing a coat to match your car (for those trips to the station to pick up hubby from the 5:07) will make you feel very grateful that things have changed.
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