My Mothers Wedding Dress or The New Glucose Revolution Pocket Guide to Healthy Kids

My Mother's Wedding Dress: The Life and Afterlife of Clothes

Author: Justine Picardi

A glorious meditation on why clothes matter.

Beginning with the story of her mother’s wedding dress, a perfect black French cocktail dress bought in 1960, writer and former Vogue editor Justine Picardie affirms what all of us may have suspected: that the real value of our wardrobes lies in the history and associations woven into our clothes. Combining tales of her own family and friends, intimate stories from the fashion business, and reflections on clothes in literature and pop culture, Picardie uncovers the truths that lie underneath what we wear. She reflects on the strange disappearance of garments we love; the allure of uniforms; the house that Chanel built; the bridal and ghostly qualities of women in white; the fate of a ring belonging to Charlotte Brontë; the power of scarlet clothing; how Donatella Versace, Karl Lagerfeld, and Claude Montana dress themselves; and how the clothes we inherit from loved ones link us to the departed. Rich with fascinating stories from the public and private worlds of fashion, My Mother’s Wedding Dress is a gorgeously written book about what clothes cover up, and what they reveal.

The New York Times - Sarah Churchwell

In a sense, Picardie's book is about what constitutes a throwaway: it's about what we keep and what we lose; it's about perishability.

Publishers Weekly

A former British Vogue editor turned novelist (Wish I May) offers a stylish treatment of the significance of clothes to their owners and admirers. A black wedding dress belonging to Picardie's mother circa 1960 became the author's perfect little black dress 20 years later and serves as the elegant entr e to Picardie's narrative. Picardie devotes a chapter to each item: the wedding dress, cast off by her divorced mum, was added to the author's secondhand college wardrobe, a "rag-tag bundle of other people's identities"; a pair of plastic trousers, purchased in 1977, signified a transitory rebellion; a velvet jacket belonging to various relatives segues into a meditation on the frustrating elements of the unfinished story. Most poignant is the author's exploration of haunted clothing, seen in literary examples from Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Bowen, and exemplified in clothing favored by her terminally ill sister and abandoned in death. Picardie is amusingly digressive, moving from a discourse on the Gap's ability to bridge fashion and functionality to Zelda Fitzgerald's clothing memory as a grasp of her dwindling sanity. Picardie is also a terrific journalist, offering a shimmering chapter on the profane and sacred aspects of "scarlet women" and sharp interviews with Donnatella Versace and Karl Lagerfeld. (May 1) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Former British Vogue editor Picardie (If the Spirit Moves You: Life and Love After Death) has written a penetrating and absorbing book about the meaning of clothes in relation to their owners' memories and personal histories. Each chapter focuses on a particular item of clothing, a symbolic aspect of clothing (e.g., color), or a person (e.g., a designer). Some chapters are quite personal, such as those in which Picardie associates certain items with her deceased sister or reminisces about the black wedding dress of the book's title, which she had incorporated into her college wardrobe. Others, like those on the colors white and red, ponder the symbolic associations of color to clothes and examine the attire of fictional and historical characters. There was the white dress worn by the reclusive Emily Dickinson, the sinister white of C.S. Lewis's White Witch and Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen, and the contrast of the scarlet red of adulteresses with the blood red of religious martyrs. Also interesting are interviews with designers Karl Lagerfeld and Donatella Versace. This engaging book is recommended for general collections as well as libraries collecting books on fashion.-Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll. Lib., MA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

1	My Mother's Wedding Dress	1
2	The Fairy Without Any Knickers On	12
3	The Orange Apple Dress	24
4	School Uniform	31
5	Plastic Trousers	36
6	Ghost Dresses	44
7	The One That Got Away	60
8	The Gap	72
9	The Velvet Jacket	84
10	The Return of the Little Black Dress	97
11	The Women in White	113
12	Bella Donna	138
13	Bella's Sweater	151
14	Scarlet Women	162
15	Charlotte Bronte's Ring	186
16	The Black Sash	219
	Acknowledgments	237
	Permissions	239

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The New Glucose Revolution Pocket Guide to Healthy Kids

Author: Dr Jennie Brand Miller

Doctors say that healthy eating habits should start at an early age, but planning a healthy diet that children will eat and enjoy can be a challenging task for parents. In this handy pocket guide, the world's leading experts on the glycemic index (GI)-a ranking of foods according to the rate at which their carbohydrate contents are digested and absorbed-clearly explain how parents can use it to improve and maintain the overall nutrition and health of their children. These authors of the New York Times bestseller The New Glucose Revolution describe which types of carbohydrates are best for children, shows how foods with low GI values can help guide important dieting decisions, and provides menus that even the pickiest eaters will love. With an accessible alphabetical listing of the glycemic index values, fat, and carbohydrate content of over 800 foods and drinks addressed to parents of children of all ages, The New Glucose Revolution Pocket Guide to Healthy Kids will help them lay the foundation for a healthy future.