July 2013, Usborne, 24 pages, Paperback, Review copy
Themes: Edwardian era, stunning dresses, lots of shoes and boots, clothes for men and women, accessories, coats, influence of specific events/people, boat racing, a trip to the sea, golf, driving outfit, afternoon tea, a day at Ascot races, tradition, parasols, dancing costumes, wartime fashion, travel by sea, parties, friendships, farewells,
Content: lots of stickers
Summary from Usborne
Discover the elegant fashions people
wore a hundred years ago in this beautiful sticker book with over 160
stickers of exquisite clothing and accessories.
From blazers and straw boaters for an afternoon by the river, to luxurious Art Nouveau gowns at a sophisticated arts evening.
Features
extra information about life and fashion in Edwardian times, including
contemporary advertisements and full-colour photographs.
Includes a ‘fashion design’ section with blank clothes to decorate and internet links to find out more.
Nayuleska's thoughts
In truth I was a bit disappointed by this book. As some of you know I'm loving sticker books at the moment. I'd awaited this one with lots of anticipation because the Edwardian era is included in the TV show Downton. I was excited to learn about different parts of outfits which the characters of Downton wore. I wasn't disappointed in the outfits design - my favourite has to be the wartime day dress and gorgeous coat with muffler worn by Simone, and also the super cute and elegant nautical outfit Iris wore to the sea - her shoes are so dainty! I really like the long button style ladies boots.
The part which really dragged the grade down were the stickers themselves. Unlike other books where bags had the background part by the handle cut out, they were filled in for this book which looked weird
when putting them in people's hands. The biggest offender was some of the ladies' headwear. Not only
was the hat or hairpiece included in the sticker, but the head was too! It felt quite weird in a not so nice
way to be putting the heads on the ladies, especially when the head was already present on the page. I
don't understand why this happened, because some hats etc were without a head. None of the mens'hats
had heads on them. I think it is just that I find dealing with body parts separately from an illustration odd,
I do think that most readers won't be freaked out by this, that it's just my personal preference.(Apologies for the formatting here, Blogger has gone nuts)
Suggested read
Do check out other books in the series including Around The World & Fashion Long Ago (Children's, sticker book, 5 years +, 10/10)
Great piece. I was fascinated by the different faces and body parts. I'm not a pro on the subject other than I love art that is either from or a replica of earlier times. However, maybe the reasoning behind the sticker body parts is a take on paper dolls from that time. Before Barbie, paper dolls were little girls favorite. Also before Barbie there were no moving parts, so the extra pieces gave some range of expression and movement for the paper dolls. Anyways now days with the attraction to the bizarre and oddities the stickers may not offend as much as one would think
ReplyDeleteLalunarock - thanks for your insight, I hadn't thought about how the sticker dolls could be like paper dolls. I realise that the head issue is most probably just me, as I tend to be in the minority for what I find freaky. :-) More sticker dolly book reviews are coming soon! (without freaky heads...)
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