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The Hormone Secret

Have you gained weight in recent years even though your eating habits and activity level haven’t changed? Has your waist expanded along with your jeans size? Do you wake in the morning more tired than you were when you went to bed? Do you crash at 3 p.m. every day, barely keeping your droop- ing eyes open? Are your arms flabby despite regular workouts with weights and machines at the gym? Do you notice memory problems and loss of focus, a feeling that 

you’re losing your edge? Do you have osteoporosis or osteopenia? Patients over forty tell me almost daily that they’ve gone to the doctor be- cause they have such symptoms. They’re tired and cranky; they don’t sleep well or care much about sex. They’re not as sharp as they used to be. They’ve added pounds and lost muscle. They make an appointment for a physical exam and a series of blood tests, and the results fall in the range of “normal.” The doctor says, “You’re fine,” and suggests an antidepressant or sleeping pills or both. Yet these women don’t feel “fine.” I am an MD board-certified in natural medicine, and an expert in hormone and aesthetic medicine. When patients come to my clinic in Seattle, Washington, for help, I tell them “normal” is a setting on a dryer, not an accurate description of your state of health. These patients simply don’t have a condition or disease that is associated with a code that can be billed to insurance. Sometimes they’re even diagnosed as the “worried well.” Yes, there is a code for that! But the absence of disease does not equal wellness. Optimal health includes energy and vitality, and true prevention of conditions associated with aging. You don’t need to accept the slow decline of energy, mental clarity, and zest for life as the years go by. You don’t have to accept waking up at 2 a.m. unable to go back to sleep. It isn’t “normal.” I don’t want you to feel “fine.” I want you to feel fabulous. And I’m going to show you how. Chalk it up to the great hormone decline. The fact is, women’s quality of life has changed dramatically in recent decades. Yes, we’ve been freed to achieve and realize our dreams as never before. But the educational and ca- reer opportunities, and the choices we now have in how and when we build our families, all come at a price. We’re drowning in our increased responsi- bilities and the pressures of our multiple roles. We’ve also been slammed by a major blow to our hormone levels. It’s a fact of life that hormone levels naturally decline as part of menopause and the aging process. Our mothers and grandmothers experienced these changes as well. But over the last thir- ty years these levels have dropped much earlier in women’s lives and to a greater degree than ever before. Research shows that hormone levels now decrease 30 percent to 50 percent between the ages of twenty and forty alone. The result is an onslaught of hormone imbalances and deficiencies that weaken our ability to look, feel, and function at our best. This hormone loss has accelerated, in part, due to the explosion of stress in our lives and to enormous environmental changes. Since the end of World War II, more than twenty thousand chemicals and other agents have been introduced into the environment and into our food system. You’ve heard about and read about it, yet chances are you haven’t realized the extent of these changes. Most of the cleaning supplies under your sink contain chemicals that negatively affect your hormone levels. Hormones are put into poultry and cattle to fatten them up before they go to market, and that directly affects you. Pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables has an impact on your hormone levels. Chemicals used in canned goods and plastic containers throw off your hormones. All of these are called “hor- mone disrupters,” or xenobiotics. Over time, they cause your hormone lev- els to drop faster than they ordinarily would. But the No. 1 culprit above all the rest is stress. Stress is like a little Pac-Man, running through your bloodstream “eating” all your hormones. Stress, and the inflammation it creates, depletes your hormones and en- courages development of diseases including cancer. Our 24/7 lifestyle and the ever-changing world we live in has taken a huge toll. We have heavier workloads, and even our play is not restorative. Our cell phones and iPhones and the demands they make accompany us on vacations at the beach, to the dinner table at meals, and sometimes even in bed. How many of us check our emails before getting out of bed in the morning? I know I am guilty. We have no true “breaks.” No wonder our bodies are exhausted. I’ve written this book to tell you about a true secret weapon that changes everything. It’s one particular hormone that’s the missing link to a better body, brain, and life. You won’t believe the difference it can make. That hor- mone is testosterone. I’m not talking about taking this hormone. I’m talking about using nutrition, lifestyle changes, and supplements available over the counter to lose weight, look and feel great, and perform at your best. By following my 30-Day Plan, you actually can have enough testosterone in your body without medication—and the results are dramatic.

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The Cycle of Fashion

In 1978, Chanel’s Little Black Dress goes on sale at Christie’s auction rooms in London. The short-length evening dress of black pleated silk chiffon has bootlace straps and a fine gauze jacket.  Throughout history, fashion has served as a marker of class and wealth. The rulers of Ancient Rome introduced sumptuary laws to ensure that the garments people wore reflected their social

 standing – it was an easy way to tell who was worth speaking to! Meanwhile, clothes have always courted controversy. The Emperor Honorius issued a decree prohibiting men from wearing ‘barbarian’ trousers in Rome, on pain of death. An extreme form of sartorial control, it presumably kept troublemakers at bay. With the mods and rockers of the 1960s, the police had only their powers of arrest to rely on! This book looks at twentieth century vintage fashion – from the Roaring Twenties to the Exuberant Eighties – and examines how and why styles evolved. Fashions are often linked to a change in social mood. After the First World War, the ‘bright young things’ wore rule-breaking outfits to match their rule-breaking behaviour. In 1947, after the Second World War, the New Look swished its skirts in reaction to stiff upper lips, ration books and frugal fashions. Similarly, the ‘don’t mess with me’ wide-shouldered suits and ostentatious jewellery of the Eighties contrasted with the ‘let it all hang out’ free-flowing peasant frocks and attitude of the Seventies. Although the twentieth century built up the walls of haute couture, it was also responsible for tearing them down. The democratizing effect of two world wars, the emancipation of women and the surge in mass production meant that the exclusive world of designer fashion began to lose its jealously guarded dominance. Since the Sixties, the cycle of fashion has been spinning ever faster – clothes now become fashionable, then out-of- date and then ‘retro’ at breakneck pace. Slavish followers of fashion find themselves spending a lot of money on clothes that quickly end up as land- fill. To make matters worse, many of the fashions available on the high street are unoriginal and of dubious quality. Buying vintage is a good way to avoid the mediocrity of the chain stores. It means you can revel in owning a garment carefully made from quality fabric and, if you are lucky, by a name synonymous with style.

NOT JUST A LOAD OF OLD FROCKS! Those fashion designers whose work has lasted found a way to tap into the public consciousness to produce iconic pieces. In many ways they defined the contours of the twentieth-century female form. Coco Chanel’s Little Black Dress, quilted bags, twinsets and pearls, slacks and sportswear are all classics that have been collectable for decades. Other designers whose vin- tage items are sought-after today include Jeanne Lanvin, Madeleine Vionnet, Elsa Schiaparelli and Christian Dior, as well as the more affordable Ossie Clark, Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, Barbara Hulanicki (Biba) and Christian Lacroix. Wearing vintage fashion transports you back in time and provides a con- nection with people from the past. By wearing clothes or jewellery owned by a favourite female friend or relative you may feel closer to them in some   way. Most vintage and retro clothing was made at a time when clothes were expected to last. You may be delighted to find that your Fifties frock or Six- ties trouser suit is much better tailored and constructed than anything you could buy today. Perhaps the recent rise in the popularity of vintage fashion is connected with our search for identity and meaning in this young and, as yet, un- shaped twenty-first century. With the twentieth century now firmly behind us, we can assess and make sense of it with ease. We can also conveniently compartmentalize it into decades – as, indeed, we have done for this book! It would be misleading to claim that fashion can explain the complexities of history, but it can give us glimpses of people’s personalities, moods and tastes and their reactions to a changing world. What could be a more potent reminder of the people who inhabited the twentieth century than the opportunity to – literally – walk a mile in their shoes?

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LET ME SHOW YOU HOW TO DRESS

Even though fashion won’t last forever, that doesn’t mean you should dis- miss its place in your wardrobe. There is a tightrope to be walked between dressing so stylishly that your look becomes dull, and looking current. Some people argue that foregoing fashion in favour of style equates to being boring. Not true. One of the aims of this book is to help you look stylish and fashionable, if you want to, 

without looking like a fashion victim. If you can grasp the difference between style and fashion, then far be it for me to dictate what you should and shouldn’t wear, but I would like to present a fail-safe guide that will help you get dressed, the tips and for- mulas that will save you time, as well as explaining why certain pieces go to- gether. These are the general rules that will help you to look good and feel even better, and dressing stylishly is a perfect starting point. Style is often about paring things back and relying on good-quality basics. There are many old-fashioned ‘figure fixes’ around, but who wants to wear halter-necks all the time just because they have a pear-shaped rear? (And needing your ‘figure’ to be ‘fixed’ is such a hideous concept.) You should appraise your shape honestly and keep in mind anything you’re particularly proud of, or perhaps want to keep under wraps, and then be reassured that by following the rules of proportion, almost nothing will be out of bounds when it comes to getting dressed. If all your clothes were confiscated, where would you begin a re-stocking shopping trip? What pieces would you want to return to? Even if you pick jeans and a T-shirt, upgrading these pieces from basic to becoming stylish means adding little twists of personality that come from your own likes and dislikes as well as your personality. What style and shape of jeans and cut of T-shirt would you pick? How would you wear them? Jane Birkin became a style icon for her reliance on jeans and a T-shirt. But if you analyze her look further, it was always a skinny fit, scoop-neck cap-sleeve T-shirt worn with high-waist, flat-fronted wide-leg jeans. She’d wear flat shoes or sandals and always carry a basket. Princess Diana was a denim icon of the 1990s and favoured a tapered silhouette and stone-washed shade, but she’d wear her denims belted high on the waist with a double-breasted blazer and loafers or ballet flats to make them feel smarter and less hippyish than Birkin did. You can see that both women – although thirty years apart – had echoes of current fashion in their outfits, so they didn’t look out of place at the time, but were still ultimately timeless. These clues are visible in the wash and cut of their jeans and what they chose to wear them with – and, of course, their hair and make-up. Their basics looked relevant to the era but were also stylish because of the styling each woman applied to her outfit. Style is about personal choice: how you roll your sleeves, the type of shoes you choose. Starting to bring style into your wardrobe, if you’ve previously been overwhelmed by following fashion or perhaps didn’t care for style at all, means playing it safe to start with. If you don’t know yourself and your style yet, don’t take risks. Keep it simple and pared back. After all, some of the most stylish women of the last century were known for style that didn’t shout.

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How to Dress: Secret styling tips from a fashion insider

Ithought long and hard about the title of this book. Who am I to tell you how to get dressed? I am certainly not a paid-up member of the fashion po- lice, nor a boob-grabbing Hooray Henrietta who wants to coerce you into curve-enhancing prints that flaunt your bangers. I am a fashion editor with seventeen years of experience on magazines, and I have worked on an array of British publications including Stylist, Glamour, Grazia and Stella, along with contributions to the 

international editions of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. My day job as a stylist sees me searching through the high street and designer catwalks to edit the trends that will work in reality and discovering the gems of the season that are really worth buying. On photo shoots, I have dressed all sorts of bodies from Olympic champions to the perfectly plus-sized, from tinily petite pop singers through to Amazonian models – encompassing every figure, shape and size in between. My job is to always make everyone look great. And that’s empowering for me and for them. I’ve appeared on radio and live panel talks to discuss and dissect every- thing, from the craze for clogs to seasonal trends and the state of the British high street. I am properly obsessed with clothes, shoes, bags, belts, sunglasses and jewellery, and when I’m not at work I spend my time trying on my wardrobe, working out combinations of clothes for different occa- sions and playing with new outfits or shopping, whether that’s for me, a client or the window variety. I promise you, I know my stuff when it comes to getting dressed. The defi- nition of ‘how’ is ‘in what manner, by what means’, and my aim with this book is to show you the ways and means with which you can dress well. I

want you to use this book as a guide. It’s a set of ideas, a collection of for- mulas, a gathering of stylish tips and fashionable principles that will give you the guidance to build outfits that work, that won’t look ‘off’, out of pro- portion or weird. By the end you should feel excited about getting dressed, you shouldn’t ever wail, ‘I have nothing to wear!’ and you will know how to make the most of the clothes you already own with the secret styling tips I’ve shared. Best of all, knowing how to dress means that people will focus on you and not your clothes. For want of a better analogy, this is a recipe book that encourages you to use your own ingredients and follow the recipes within to mix up the perfect outfit. When people find out what I do, they always ask what they should be wear- ing this season, what the colour of the moment is, what new things they should buy. But getting dressed well is so much more than buying some- thing in, say, pillar-box red just because it’s ‘in’. I want this book to cele- brate your personal style and not be a bible for following fashion. The processes I go through at the start of each season echo the way you would approach getting dressed and going shopping, and that’s how I’ve decided to set out the chapters in this book. You will start by thinking about what you’d like to wear, how that fits with your lifestyle, what you might need to buy and how to deal with actually making a purchase. Then we’ll move on to how you should store your clothes when you get them home and all the little ways to make an outfit come alive. I start by explaining style and fashion. The two concepts are very different and although they are often lumped together, acknowledging that they are not the same is absolutely crucial and the first thing to learn in your dress- ing journey. You can skip chapter one if you already know the difference be- tween fashion and style, although it’s not a long chapter. Working out your own signature style comes next, and I share the ways in which you can ex- plore your sense of self through your clothes. This is how to edit yourself. Once you’ve discovered your own personal style – whatever it may be you’ll still need some fail-safe items you can turn to in a crisis. Chapter three could be a standalone read. Essentially, this is a shopping list of all the pieces you need to own to build looks that work consistently well. Like houses, outfits need solid foundations. That doesn’t necessarily mean sturdy bras and knickers, but key pieces you can build the rest of a look on. Once you’ve acknowledged what your own style is and realized what you need in your wardrobe, it’s time to go shopping. It’s not enough to pick something up from a rail and hand over your credit card at the checkout. Chapter four is a coaching exercise in building a proper shopping strategy, whether you are shopping online, actually on the high street or in the mall. The goal is to ensure that you aren’t lured by the sales or spangly items that you’ll never wear. If you are searching for more practical advice, the middle chapters, How to Shop and Your Wardrobe, are the pragmatic ones. When you get your new buys home, you need to present them properly to get the most out of them, and I have some tips on dealing with wardrobe detoxes, too! Finally comes all the expert, insider knowledge I’ve gathered during my ca- reer. These are the secrets to styling yourself like a fashion pro. Skip straight to chapter six if you want to know the way to roll your sleeves and be let in on the formula for the magical Third Piece. This book isn’t a hard-and-fast set of rules; after all, as chapter seven ad- vises, fashion should be fun. I want you to fall in love with getting dressed as much as I do and, armed with a few new ways in which to do it, go and get dressed in whatever you want.

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Jayne Mansfield shows off her high heels

And yet, most people are unaware of our nation’s political history— much less its fashion legacy. We’re living in a woefully a-historical age. Often when I asked my students at Parsons to tell me when World War II was, no one could. It’s especially galling that so few young designers know about American fashion 

history because there aren’t even very many years to learn about! Until World War II, we were a nation of copiers. During the war, we couldn’t copy from Europe, because the couture houses had closed. Along came American innovators like Claire McCardell and Norman Norell, representing two different aesthetics—sportswear and evening wear, respectively—and American creativity in fashion was born. The 1940s weren’t that long ago, but even fashion students at some of the best schools are ignorant of what a huge shift occurred in the field during that era. Meanwhile, I could frequently tell which students had no historical sense simply by looking at how derivative their designs were. They kept thinking they were inventing the wheel with every new design because they hadn’t bothered to inform themselves that the wheel already had a long and happy history. This situation always reminds me of the Phoenicians. They made reproductions of Egyptian and Greek art, but they couldn’t read hiero- glyphs, so the writing they reproduced was all gibberish. They’d never seen a chariot in real life, so the scenes they depicted on vases showed someone standing in a little cart without the horses attached. Borrowing from cul- tures without understanding the fundamentals can yield some pretty weird and wholly illogical perversions. I am especially concerned that American fashion not be forgotten. Once, I met the head of a hot design school in the Netherlands, and she ex- pressed nothing but contempt for American design—an attitude I find very offensive when espoused by Europeans and downright tragic when held by Americans. When I look through Project Runway applications, I am always struck by how few American designers are cited in the influences section. Invariably, the only designers they name are Alexander McQueen, Christian Dior, and Coco Chanel—often misspelled “Channel.” You only rarely see American designers listed. If you do, it’s usually Donna Karan. (I don’t understand why people don’t write Michael Kors—even just in their own political self-interest.) When it comes to fashion, we clearly need to become more patriotic and defend our own country’s tradition as a worthy extension of Western fash- ion history. I always wonder how these people who are trying to be the “next great American fashion designer” can fail to appreciate any of the histor- ically great American designers. I’m thinking of Pauline Trigère, Claire Mc- Cardell, Norman Norell, Bill Blass, Rudi Gernreich, Bonnie Cashin, Larry Aldrich, Geoffrey Beene . . . . The list goes on and on! Instead, many young designers I meet idolize the Antwerp Six, early-eighties graduates of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, including Dries van Noten and Ann Demeule- meester—and if people can’t spell “Chanel,” they really cannot spell “De- meulemeester.

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Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible

WE ALL HAVE an intuitive sense of what clothes mean. When you walk into a room or down the street, even without thinking about it, you immediately take note of clothing clues and judge the wearers accordingly. You can usu- ally tell at a glance whether a person is rich, poor, or somewhere in the mid- dle. Often, 

you can even guess what someone does for a living—the mes- senger with his pants legs rolled up, the businessman in his suit. And yet, it’s rare that people think about what their own clothes signify about their place in the world or their priorities. Clothes are self-expression. If you have a limited range of outfits—say, only capri pants and T-shirts— it’s as though you have a limited range of words in your vocabulary. While many historians concern themselves with the dress of indigenous civilizations, the work of certain designers, or with very specific periods in fashion, I am most interested in the clothes we wear right here and now and how various looks came into vogue. My focus in this book is on Western fashion, with a particular emphasis on America. I will look, piece by piece, at the items most Americans have in their closets and ask, “Do you know where this garment comes from—before Old Navy?” This old thing?, you may think. My answer is yes. Even that ratty band T-shirt has a fascinating history that goes back far before the Steel Wheels tour. While American fashion is often vilified as sloppy or as the poor relation of Parisian couture, I find it full of surprises, beauty, and history. And I love exploring the ways in which and the reasons why clothing changes over time. Before writing this book, I considered myself to be something of a fash- ion expert. I was an educator for twenty-nine years, during which I loved learning as much as I loved teaching. And yet, while working on this book, my learning curve has so profoundly accelerated and my body of knowledge has so increased that I feel as though I’ve gone through graduate school again! The research required was simultaneously daunting and exhilarating. Every day brought exclamations of surprise and wonder.  For example, I have always maintained that fashion is all about context— societal, cultural, historic, economic, and political. But even I was shocked by what a massive fashion shift occurred during the French Revolution. The sumptuous gowns during the reigns of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI became so dazzlingly vast and the wigs and headdresses so loftily high that archi- tecture, interiors, and furniture all had to be reimagined. Then, in a mo- ment, these dramatic silhouettes suddenly vanished, along with the royal court. In their place were dresses so basic that they resembled the simplest of nightgowns. These unbleached cotton garments had no infrastructure and no embellishments. It just goes to show: fashion and history are inextricably linked! Why is it, you may ask, that the lion’s share of fashion history books examine fashion in the Western world? The answer is simple: for centuries clothing in the Western world has changed and evolved, while clothing in the East has remained unchanged. The Indian sari; the Chinese cheongsam, or qipao; the Korean hanbok; the Japanese kimono have all stayed the same for thousands of years. Their evolution is in the textile. The kimono, for example, is belted with an obi that must be 12 inches wide and 4.38 yards long. How’s that for prescriptive? There are many examples of beautiful clothes in these parts of the world, and their histories are also fascinating, but there isn’t the same level of evolution. For this same reason, I’ll also put aside discussion of the Euro- pean folk tradition. Regional peasant clothing is remarkable in its   consistency. There is a Bronze Age clay figurine found in Romania of a woman whose costume bears an uncanny resemblance to a Bulgarian folk costume worn in the early twentieth century. That’s thirty-five hundred years in which the dress barely changed!¹ But it’s a dead end for us if we’re talk- ing about how fashion evolved to where we are today. When you think, by contrast, about what happened to the toga, it’s pretty mind-blowing. The toga was just a piece of cloth that you draped around your body to preserve your modesty. The original toga was floor-length, and it was the apparel of the aristocracy. Wealthy Greeks and Romans wore it when gliding around rooms. Outside, the ground was filthy, so the toga became shorter once Romans started to wear it beyond their marble-floored villas. Then, of course, people noticed that the bottom half of the garment became dirtier more quickly than the top, so the toga eventually evolved into separates . . . and today into both modern sportswear and the wrap dress.

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Wartime

Wartime WWII put fashion in an unusually practical position, with women forced into factory work after the men had left for the front. Fabric rationing meant less fullness in the skirts and sleeves, and contributed to the slimmer, no- nonsense silhouettes and alternate materials like rayon. The ‘make do and mend’ 

campaign saw the recycling of garments and contrasting fabrics. With Paris occupied and London under siege, fashion saw a reliance on American designers and ready-to-wear for the first time. The feminine, romantic feeling of the 1930s sobered up to a mature, practical woman with her nipped-in waist, practical knee-length skirts, padded shoulders and long sleeves. 1940s Styles: Practical workwear, austere tailored suits, wrap-around ‘popover’ dress, recycled knits Utilitarian details: Patch pockets, epaulettes, larger buttons platform shoes, spectator shoes, fur stoles, shoulder-strap bags high-rolled hairstyles, snood hair- nets, red lipstick, ‘painted’ stockings Colours: Dark and dusty: utility blue, browns, grab green, beige Fabrics: Wool, cotton, denim, rayon, seersucker, jersey, pinstripes, small scat- tered patterns Designers: Norman Norell, Claire McCardell, Hattie Carnegie, Pierre Balmain, Edith Head, Adrian, Jacques Fath Fashion Influences: Lauren Bacall, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Kathryn Hep- burn, Rosie the Riveter, Carmen Miranda Illustrators: Eric, Alberto Vargas Photographers: Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Lee Miller, Irving Penn Movies: Gilda, Casablanca, It’s a Wonderful Life, Rebecca 1950s The New Look The post-war return to domesticity saw a resurgence in high fashion, and the practical woman became a sophisticated lady in the 1950s. Her retreat to the home saw the return of the proper corseted waist, impractically full skirts, softly rounded shoulders and bracelet-length sleeves. A return to ex- travagant eveningwear and matched ensembles were a requirement for any well-dressed woman, but the Rockabilly and Beatniks also brought a youth- ful influence from the streets. 1950s Styles: Twinsets, pencil skirts, shirtwaist dress, cocktail dress, strapless ball gowns, ‘the little black dress,’ fur coats, stiletto heel, pearl necklaces, clutch purses, matching accessories, chignon hairstyles, gingham dresses, pedal pushers, Converse and Keds sneakers, preppy style Colours: Jewel tones, neutrals Fabrics: Wool tweed, cashmere, satin, taffeta, organza, nylon net, cotton piqué Designers: Christian Dior, Cristobal Balenciaga, Pierre Balmain, Charles James, Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies, Pauline Trigère, Hubert de Givenchy Fashion Influences: Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Eva Peron, Evelyn Tripp Illustrators: René Gruau, Coby Whitmore, Rene Bouché, Bernard Blossac Photographers: Bill Brandt, Diane Arbus, William Klein, Cecil Beaton Movies: Sabrina, Funny Face, The Seven Year Itch, Rebel Without a Cause, The Wild One, La Dolce Vita, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, All About Eve, To Catch a Thief, Rear Window The rise of teenage culture and rock and roll during this decade had a last- ing influence on fashion, as did the electronic age and the rise of suburban development, shopping malls, and the domestic use of washing machines.  1960s The Mod The woman who had been maturing over the last 30 years started over again in the 1960s, with a wide-eyed return to youthfulness and a naïve schoolgirl look colourfully influenced by Pop Art and Op Art. The look was unisex, with waistless sack dresses, short haircuts, and sleeveless tops. The mod styles of swinging London’s Carnaby Street and King’s Road reached the world along with The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, James Bond, and The Avengers in a ‘British Invasion.’ Hemlines shot up to the mini-skirt, showcasing colourful tights and go-go boots, and silver and metallic colours highlighted the inspiration of the Space Age. The free spir- its of the decade saw the freedom of oral contraception and the Women’s Lib movement, and politics met fashion in the Equal Rights Movement, at Woodstock and protests against the Vietnam War.

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FASHION PORTFOLIO

The Flapper With the post-war relaxation of social standards, new sporting activities and dances like the Tango and the Charleston had a profound affect on the modern ‘jazz-age’ generation. Women’s suffrage was reflected in the most casual of dress seen in centuries. The ideal figure was ‘the garçon’, a youth- ful, energetic, boyish quality with skirts to the knees and bare arms. This new 

woman smoked cigarettes, bobbed her hair, and would never be seen in a corset. With the widespread use of the automobile came mobility and freedom, as well as time for recreational activities like tennis and golf. 1920s Styles: Robe de Style, Flapper dress, jersey separates, cardigan sweaters, tennis sweaters, cloche hat, gloves, silk stockings, long strands of pearls, costume jewellery, feather and fur boas, ankle-strap shoes; the bob and ‘Eton’ crop, rouged lips, pencilled eyebrows, the introduction of the zip Colours: Sunset colours: sea green, dusty rose, slate blues and grays Fabrics: Silk crêpe, silk georgette, beaded silks Designers: Madeleine Vionnet, Coco Chanel, Hattie Carnegie, Sonia Delaunay, Jean Patou Fashion Influences: Colleen Moore, Clara Bow, Claudette Colbert, Josephine Baker, Louise Brooks, Rudolph Valentino Illustrators: Erté, J.C. Leyendecker Fashion Photographers: George Hoyningen-Huene Movies, Theatre and Books: Ziegfeld Follies, Charlie Chaplin, Aelita, the ‘It Girl’, Pandora’s Box, The Great Gatsby The Movie Star Following the stock market crash of 1929, The Depression coloured the reality of fashion for many once-well-shod, but both the glamour of the Golden Age of Hollywood movies and the abstraction of surrealism were outlets for the nation. The boyish looks of the 1920s matured into a femi- nine silhouette, with a return to the natural waist, her curves emphasised by bias-cut dresses. This highly feminine decade featured flowers and ruffles, with demure Peter Pan collars and dropped hemlines. The width of her shoulders were dramatically emphasised by puffed or ruffled sleeves, giving a strong basis for the classical silhouettes. 1930s Styles: Bathing suits, bared-back evening gowns, envelope bags, fur capes and stoles, short, curly hair Colours: Cream, peach, gold, champagne, chartreuse, shocking pink Fabrics: Charmeuse, chiffon, nylon, floral prints, ruffles, bows, bias-cut drapery Designers: Elsa Schiaparelli, Mainbocher, Madam Grés, Robert Piguet, Marcel Rochas, Elizabeth Hawes Fashion Influences: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers, Jean Harlow, Wallis Simpson, Anna May Wong Illustrators: René Bouét-Williaumez Fashion Photographers: Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, Man Ray, Martin Muncasci, Edward Steichen, Erwin Blumenfeld Movies: It Happened One Night, Gone with the Wind, The Women, Letty Lynton, Top Hat, She Done Him Wrong, Shanghai Express   Fashion trends do not precisely follow the calendar, and many designers, celebri- ties, photographers and trends last far longer than one decade. The following is an attempt to identify the time period in which they were most influential, and help to organise major movements in social trends and the styles that followed them.

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Perfect Health Diet: regain health and lose weight by eating the way you were meant to eat

And all were in the wrong. Much the way experts quarrel about diet! Why is it so hard to figure out the optimal diet? Like the blind men in the fable, diet experts begin with no clear picture of what an elephant looks like and, after lifelong investigations, acquire only a partial grasp of the evidence. The biomedical database PubMed contains more than 22 million articles, and one million new 

papers are added each year. A typical scientist reads, at most, 1000 papers per year. No matter how long a scientist’s career, it’s impossible to read more than 0.1 per cent of the literature. Most of this reading has to be in the scientist’s specialty — a small part of the elephant. Adding to the problem is the complexity of human biology. We need to get many nutrients, maybe hundreds, from our food. Food contains  thousands of toxins. With so many different ways food can nourish or harm us and so many different ways to assemble foods into a diet, picking out which diet is healthiest is like answering a multiple-choice test that has a billion choices. It’s easy to go wrong. Looking at all this research is like looking at a disassembled jigsaw puz- zle with no picture of the completed puzzle. It’s hard to tell how to put the pieces together.  A Big-Picture View We Can Trust What we really need is a big-picture view — a view of the whole elephant. We need a reliable guide to the optimal diet, a guide that gives us an ap- proximation to the truth at the very beginning of our investigations. This ap- proximate answer can be a lodestar that guides us through the labyrinth of details, preventing many a wrong turn. This is where an evolutionary perspective comes in. We know that healthy people and animals are more likely to survive the vicissitudes of life and have children and grandchildren. This means that evolution selects for healthful behaviours — including healthful eating. If we’re looking for a human diet that evolution guarantees is healthful, the place to start is with the diets of the Paleolithic. The Paleolithic was so long — 2.6 million years — that Paleolithic man became highly optimised for the Stone Age environment. In the last 10,000 years, mutations have be- come much more common due to population growth, ¹ but most beneficial mutations have not had time to become widespread. The historical era has been a period of genetic diversification and emerging but incomplete adap- tation to modern life. That means if we want an environment, diet, and   lifestyle that will be healthful for all of us, we have to look back to the Pale- olithic.  READER REPORTS: improved energy and health The improvements I have seen since implementing this diet are numerous. My energy levels are much steadier throughout the day (as opposed to the constant ‘peaks and troughs’ I experienced whilst following a vegetarian diet for 4 years); my cravings for sugar have virtually disappeared; I have only suffered from one cold in the past 10 months as opposed to my usual 2 or 3; my weight is effortlessly stable; I never feel hungry despite switching from 6 small meals per day to just 3; the list goes on!

SCIENCE OF THE PHD Why We Share a Paleolithic Heritage The Paleolithic began 2.6 million years ago with the invention of stone tools and ended 10,000 years ago with the invention of agri- culture. The Paleolithic lasted 100,000 generations and was charac- terised by small populations, typically, tens or hundreds of thou- sands; at the end of the Paleolithic the human population was three million. The modern era has a large population — seven billion today — but evolution has had little time, less than 500 generations, to work its magic. We can calculate how long it will take before every possible muta- tion appears in some person, somewhere. Every child has a similar number of mutations — about 175 new point mutations among the three billion base pairs of the human genome. ² •In the Paleolithic, with 10,000 children per generation, it would have taken 8000 generations, or 160,000 years, for each pos- sible mutation to occur once. •Today, with more than a billion children per generation, every possible point mutation now appears about 20 times per gener- ation, or almost yearly. We can also calculate the time required for a beneficial mutation to reach ‘fixation’, or universal presence throughout humanity. This time is on the order of ln(N)/s, where N is the population size and s is the selection coefficient, a measure of how beneficial the mutation is in terms of expected number of children. ³ •In the Paleolithic, a mutation that raised the probability of having an extra child by only 0.1 per cent would have reached fixation in 460,000 years. So a mutation with selective advantage of 0.1 per cent would have occurred within the first 160,000 years of the Paleolithic, then become universal 460,000 years later — long before the Paleolithic was over. •In the modern era, a similar mutation would occur every year but would require 200,000 years to reach fixation. The modern era is less than 10,000 years old, however, so few recently mutated genes have had time to become universal. As a result, our ge- netic adaptation to the new environment of modern life — agricultural foods, city living, the presence of governments and complex institutions — is incomplete. And human genetic diver- sity is greater than ever before. Because mutations that would remove our adaptation to Pale- olithic diets have had little time to spread through the population, it is likely that nearly everyone is extremely well adapted to Paleolithic diets. The same cannot be said for modern diets.

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Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy

DURING THE DARK AGES OF dietary advice—from which we were just emerg- ing in 2000—guidelines for good nutrition were based on guesswork and good intentions. I wrote the first edition of this book to share with others what solid science was teaching us about the long-term effects of diet on health. The lessons were exciting. They showed that a delicious, satisfying diet based on 

whole grains, healthy oils, fruits, vegetables, and good sources of protein can help you stay healthy and active to an old age. Another reason for writing this book was to challenge the misleading ad- vice embodied in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Guide Pyra- mid, which focused on avoiding all types of fat and loading up with starch. When the USDA announced in 2005 that it was considering revising its pyramid, my colleagues and I were delighted. I sent the USDA a copy of the first edition of Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy and said it was welcome to use the evidencebased Healthy Eating Pyramid my colleagues and I had devel- oped, and which I had described in the book. As usual, though, politics and business trumped science—the USDA’s new MyPyramid offered even less guidance on healthy eating than its predecessor. Five years later, in 2010, the USDA abandoned its pyramids and replaced them with MyPlate. This infographic also conveniently failed to convey the real information needed to make healthy food choices, so my colleagues and I developed the Healthy Eating Plate. During the development of the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Amer- icans, the influence of the beef, soda, and dairy industries on Congress and the USDA was on even clearer display. In its passage of the final national

THE CONCEPTS IN THIS BOOK owe much to the work and ideas of many predecessors, present colleagues, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral stu- dents. In particular, I am grateful for the encouragement, support, and thoughts of my colleagues Ed Giovannucci, Meir Stampfer, Graham Colditz, Bernard Rosner, Laura Sampson, JoAnn Manson, Frank Sacks, David Hunter, Charles Hennekens, Sue Hankinson, Eric Rimm, Frank Hu, and Alberto Aschiero of the Channing Laboratory and Harvard School of Public Health. Frank Speizer provided strong support over many years for the study of diet and disease within the Nurses’ Health Study. The vast majority of the research described in this book, by our own group and by others, would not have been possible without the funding of research grants through the National Institutes of Health. My colleagues and I are most appreciative of the strong public support for health-related research in the United States, and hopefully the information contained in this book will be deemed worthy of this investment. Many helpful comments were received from Drs. Meir Stampfer, Susan Roberts, Frank Sacks, Eric Rimm, Peter Glausser, and Mollie Katzen, who reviewed all or specific chapters of this book. Dr. Tony Komaroff and Ed- ward Coburn of Harvard Medical School provided important support and encouragement in the initial development of this book, and Liz Lenart and Debbie Flynn assisted in many aspects of the production. I also want to thank Simon & Schuster and Bill Rosen in particular for their vision of cre- ating a series of high-quality books about health from Harvard Medical School. At home, my wife, Gail, assisted in many experiments in new ways of eat- ing. Our sons, Amani, who managed to trade the apples in his lunch for Twinkies at day care, and Kamali, who showed me that a vegetarian diet could mean Coca-Cola, ice cream, and pizza, helped me stay in touch with reality. DURING THE DARK AGES OF dietary advice—from which we were just emerg- ing in 2000—guidelines for good nutrition were based on guesswork and good intentions. I wrote the first edition of this book to share with others what solid science was teaching us about the long-term effects of diet on health. The lessons were exciting. They showed that a delicious, satisfying diet based on whole grains, healthy oils, fruits, vegetables, and good sources of protein can help you stay healthy and active to an old age. Another reason for writing this book was to challenge the misleading ad- vice embodied in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Guide Pyra- mid, which focused on avoiding all types of fat and loading up with starch. When the USDA announced in 2005 that it was considering revising its pyramid, my colleagues and I were delighted. I sent the USDA a copy of the first edition of Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy and said it was welcome to use the evidencebased Healthy Eating Pyramid my colleagues and I had devel- oped, and which I had described in the book. As usual, though, politics and business trumped science—the USDA’s new MyPyramid offered even less guidance on healthy eating than its predecessor. Five years later, in 2010, the USDA abandoned its pyramids and replaced them with MyPlate. This infographic also conveniently failed to convey the real information needed to make healthy food choices, so my colleagues and I developed the Healthy Eating Plate. During the development of the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Amer- icans, the influence of the beef, soda, and dairy industries on Congress and the USDA was on even clearer display. In its passage of the final national budget for 2015, Congress took the highly unusual step of saying that the USDA could not consider the chapter on diet and climate change that had been written by the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines Scientific Advisory Com- mittee. Going further, the USDA distorted the conclusions of that expert committee in the final Dietary Guidelines. In this update of Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, I examine the USDA’s pyra- mids and plate and show where they have misled the public. The funda- mental principles of healthy eating that I described in the first edition have not changed. However, in this edition I incorporate additional, important details that have emerged, including new information on weight-loss strate- gies; the benefits of specific fruits, vegetables, and vitamin D; the harms of trans fats; and other elements of healthy eating. Because the urgency of ad- dressing climate change has become more apparent since 2001, I have devoted a chapter to the information censored by Congress. Over the past thirty-five years, my colleagues and I have been continually surprised by the impact of diet on the risks of a host of chronic diseases. That dietary decisions could significantly affect the chances of contracting heart disease, various cancers, cataracts, and even serious birth defects was not appreciated by the nutrition community until relatively recently. And many aspects of diet that were off the nutrition science radar screen, such as trans fat intake, glycemic load, and low intakes of folic acid and vitamin D, have emerged as important factors in long-term health. This book will guide you to make better dietary decisions for yourself and your family. 

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Perfect Health Diet

had learned. So in June 2010 we started a blog and self-published a book spelling out our ideas and the reasoning and evidence that had led us to them. Thanks to a glowing review (titled “My new favorite book on nutrition and health”) on the popular blog of the naturopathic healer Chris Kresser, we quickly gained 

hundreds of readers, many with chronic health problems. Soon they were sending us reports of health improvements. Gradually the word spread. Over the next year and a half, readers re- ported recovery from a host of ailments: obesity, migraines, acid reflux, sleep disorders, mood disorders, depression, anxiety, borderline person- ality disorder, hypothyroidism, acne, dry eyes, traumatic brain injury, PCOS, amenorrhea, infertility, allergies, constipation, bowel diseases, arthritis, high blood pressure, Raynaud’s syndrome, and many more. Here are a few of our favorites.  • After years of yo-yo dieting and never finding a weight loss diet that didn’t make him ravenous, Jay Wright lost 80 pounds in seven months on our diet without hunger. He reached his normal weight, 170 pounds, and has maintained it for the last year without difficulty. A few months into his weight loss, Jay emailed us: “THIS IS THE BEST DIET EVER!” He was at a restaurant eating a salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing, an 8-ounce steak, and a baked potato with butter and sour cream and some water with lemon and said to himself, “I can’t be- lieve I’m eating this and still losing weight!” We are two scientists who ate poorly and ignored a gradual decline in our health. By age forty, we had developed disturbing health problems:  • Paul had neuropathy, memory loss, impaired mood, physical slug- gishness, and rosacea. • Shou-Ching had painful endometriosis, ovarian cysts, and uterine fi- broids; hypothyroidism; allergies; constipation, acid reflux, and bloat- ing.  Doctors were of little help. Nothing we tried worked; surgery made Shou- Ching worse. Medical professionals couldn’t even offer a reason why we were experiencing these problems. Yet, every year, we were a little worse than the year before. Then, in 2005, we tried Chinese herbal medicines: twigs, bark, seeds, and leaves prepared at home like a tea. They seemed to work, but we both developed allergic reactions to the medicine and had to stop. That planted an idea: if medicines had no effect but a tea made from plants did, perhaps the path forward lay in what we were eating—in our diets. Paul was then developing a new approach to economics, a theory of rela- tionships and social networks (see relationshipeconomics.com). Through the economist Craig Newmark, Paul learned of the low-carb Paleo diet of the economist Art de Vany. The Paleo idea is that we evolved for 2.6 million years eating hunted ani- mals and foraged plants and that these remain our most healthful foods. It   is supported by evidence: robustly healthy Paleolithic skeletons were suc- ceeded by unhealthy skeletons with cavity-riddled teeth after the invention of agriculture,¹ and some modern peoples are entirely free of cardiovascular disease on traditional diets—for instance, the islanders of Kitava on their diet of coconut, yams, taro, and fish.² We were persuaded to give the Paleo diet a try. Paul became leaner and stronger. Shou-Ching’s allergies and digestive problems cleared. Clearly there was something to this diet. But new problems appeared. Paul developed a systemic fungal infection; over the next year his cognitive and neuropathic issues worsened, and after a year of very-low-carb dieting, he developed scurvy, which caused his weight to drop to a mere 145 pounds. The scurvy was a wake-up call: if we were malnourished in one nutrient, we were probably malnourished in others. As scientists, it was natural to us to turn to the biomedical literature for answers. Since the quality of our lives was at stake, we undertook to scour the literature, fine-tuning our diet to provide the optimal amount of each nutrient. This occupied the next five years. In 2009, Paul traced his neurological problems to a chronic bacterial infection; a course of antibiotics cleared it. Our health kept getting better; we began to feel as though we were in our twenties again.  The Perfect Health Diet Is Born  Five years of arduous research had finally led us to a healthful diet. We were convinced that our work could help others and felt obliged to share what we had learned. So in June 2010 we started a blog and self-published a book spelling out our ideas and the reasoning and evidence that had led us to them. Thanks to a glowing review (titled “My new favorite book on nutrition and health”) on the popular blog of the naturopathic healer Chris Kresser, we quickly gained hundreds of readers, many with chronic health problems. Soon they were sending us reports of health improvements. Gradually the word spread. Over the next year and a half, readers re- ported recovery from a host of ailments: obesity, migraines, acid reflux, sleep disorders, mood disorders, depression, anxiety, borderline person- ality disorder, hypothyroidism, acne, dry eyes, traumatic brain injury, PCOS, amenorrhea, infertility, allergies, constipation, bowel diseases, arthritis, high blood pressure, Raynaud’s syndrome, and many more. Here are a few of our favorites.  • After years of yo-yo dieting and never finding a weight loss diet that didn’t make him ravenous, Jay Wright lost 80 pounds in seven months on our diet without hunger. He reached his normal weight, 170 pounds, and has maintained it for the last year without difficulty. A few months into his weight loss, Jay emailed us: “THIS IS THE BEST DIET EVER!” He was at a restaurant eating a salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing, an 8-ounce steak, and a baked potato with butter and sour cream and some water with lemon and said to himself, “I can’t be- lieve I’m eating this and still losing weight!” • Kate Martins had had severe migraines for fifteen years, plus anxiety. A host of prescription drugs, diets, and supplements had all failed. She tried the ketogenic version of our diet, along with our recommended supplements and intermittent fasting, and within a week her headaches had begun to disappear. Soon she was nearly headache-free, and her anxiety had disappeared. She wrote us, “The PHD is strong brain medicine indeed!” • Joan’s sister had suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and eczema her whole adult life. Ten days after starting our diet and supplement ad- vice, Joan reported: “Within 24 hours her eczema was much im- proved. . . . Now 10 days later her eczema has completely cleared and her skin is looking good. . . . Not only that, but some of her CFS symptoms have improved. Her constant headache is not as severe, irregular heartbeat episodes have almost completely stopped and she is tolerating slightly more physical activity. . . . Her sense of despair and resignation has gone and you have given her hope of a better fu- ture. Words seem inadequate to express thanks for that.” • Brian P. wrote to thank us for helping him lose 35 pounds “along with a general improvement in energy and ‘evenness.’ ” He called our diet “totally satisfying” and closed with this: “I strongly suspect PHD played a pivotal part in my wife getting pregnant naturally, just prior to starting her next round of IVF.” 

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SALESMANSHIP

SALESMANSHIP On my next point—Salesmanship—I feel somewhat diffident : so much has already been said and written about this simple, common-sense prob- lem. The psychology of business really resolves itself into a capacity for putting oneself into the customer’s position, and the application of com- mon-sense to the matter in hand. I may say, however, that every salesman should be 

extremely particular about his personal appearance, in order to create a favourable impression. He must also cultivate a pleasing manner, for in the tailoring trade there is an unusual degree of intimacy between the customer and himself. He should study his business, and make himself master of all its ramifi- cations—there are too many tailors in the world who do not half know their trade; he should know his merchandise and what he has in stock. A salesman is not engaged merely to sell goods, but also to sell service, and to do this successfully he should know something of the technique of the trade and be able to speak from first-hand knowledge. He should also be able to try-on and know when a garment fits, and when it is properly made. These are some necessary features of his qualifications. He should make it a rule that when a sale is completed he has something else at hand to show his customer, so that further interest is aroused and possibly further orders taken; and last but by no means least, he should follow through every case of complaint—for even tailors get them ! We all know that sinking feeling when a customer sails in with a box under his arm—his return is not looked upon with pleasure. But it is well to remember that he has previ- ously given up much time to trying-on, etc., and his irritation is natural. It is also well to remember that whether he will remain a customer or remove

his patronage depends entirely upon his reception and upon the manner in which his complaints are dealt with. Every dissatisfied customer presents an opportunity—which should be made the most of—of making him your friend for life. This can generally be accomplished by courtesy, patience, and competence.  FUTURE OF THE TAILORING TRADE In looking at the probable future of the tailoring trade one discerns cer- tain problems which do not, at any rate in the same degree, beset other trades. Tailors are all manufacturers: the raw material is their cloth, and the workroom is their factory. Many other trades have been subjected to the same tendency which one observes in the competition which besets the tai- loring trade—i.e. the growth in the sales of the ready-to-wear garment. For example, the “made-to-order” shirt trade has almost entirely disappeared, and the same remark applies to collars, boots, and women’s clothing. This is not always because ready-mades are cheaper, but because in these stren- uous times they represent a saving of time and trouble. There is, however, a great difference between the attitude of the average tailor to this competition, and that of other traders subject to the same condition. We find the shirt-maker and boot-maker who formerly depended largely upon making their goods to order have now added to their business departments dealing in the same articles ready to wear. But the tailor very rarely adds a ready-made department to his business, and yet no one is so well qualified as he to take a part, and an important part, in this rapidly growing branch of the trade. Hatters do a fine trade in ready-made overcoats; hosiers have developed ready-to-wear departments,

but the tailor stands aloof—he who should be a pioneer, who should be leading and developing this new and important trade, seeing that it is de- rived from and is being developed at the expense of his own business. It is quite a mistake to suppose that ready-to-wear garments sell because of their price. In the best end of the trade, and the part that is developing most rapidly, the average prices for suits are from eight to ten guineas, and for overcoats six to ten guineas. They sell because they are well cut, well made, and above all, because the system of buying garments ready to wear is quick and convenient and more in accord with the spirit of the times. If tailors had the will they could easily find a way to add at least a part of this remunerative trade to their own businesses. What could be easier for the average tailor than to add a few ranges of ready-to-wear overcoats to his stock, and which could be sold by introduction to his own customers, instead of allowing them unchallenged to go elsewhere for these garments? This would involve very little extra capital; the necessary materials and labour are at hand allied to a lifelong knowledge of the trade which very few ready-to-wear tailors possess.

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brief article

IN this brief article I should like to confine myself mainly to three points— viz. Policy, Buying, and Salesmanship; and the Growing Competition to which the trade has been subjected during the last few years. The latter I re- gard as the greatest problem of all, and is peculiar to the bespoke tailoring trade, in that it is a competition which threatens the very existence of many hundreds of persons engaged in the business.  POLICY Taking first the subject of Policy—it is very 

necessary to have an objec- tive, something to aim at; and to know exactly what one desires to accom- plish. The first thing for a man about to engage in the tailoring trade is to decide in which branch to embark. There is a wide choice—middle class, better class, or cash trade. Once a decision has been reached, the wise plan is to adhere to it; this is most important, because no man or business can cover the whole field. The high-class trade cannot make cheap clothes, nor the cheaper class business high-grade garments. I do not think it always policy to acquire a reputation as “a specialist tai- lor,” for it tends to have a negative influence on the customer’s mind. For example, a firm specialising in, say, trousers, is not likely to be patronised for dress suits. The trade, in other words, is too circumscribed to be split   up into sections in this way. It is better to cultivate an all-round trade, and so be in a position to supply as large a proportion of your customers’ re- quirements as possible. Nothing is more damaging to any business than a change of policy; it often results in failure, and very rarely accomplishes any good. Get known for a certain “class” of trade. Determine that in that class your business shall be one of the best; don’t deviate or wobble—it is impossible to make a “cheap” suit to-day and a “good” suit to-morrow, both equally good in their respective grades. The business must be equipped to handle successfully one or the other, but it cannot do both—it is risking failure to attempt it.  BUYING Turning now to the subject of Buying—this in the tailoring trade is highly specialised and does not cover much ground. With the exception of trimmings, cloth is practically the only commodity dealt with, so that it is not difficult to acquire a sufficiently good knowledge of materials to enable buying to be done with intelligence and discrimination. Every man in the trade, no matter the nature of his duties, ought to know something of the goods he is handling—the difference between materials made from botany and cross-bred wools; fabrics made from wool or worsted; the qualities of homespuns, etc. This knowledge is a valuable asset, and favourably im- presses customers, and can be readily acquired at one or other of the tech- nical schools. Further, every young man should visit a woollen mill and see for himself the process of cloth manufacture. Stock-keeping and display are important points in any successful tai- loring business. Stock should be readily accessible and invitingly shown

Stock that is out of reach is liable to be overlooked and to become old. However carefully one may buy, some old stock is bound to accumulate— this should never be kept. It is far better to turn it into money even at a sacrifice, than to leave it indefinitely on the shelves. Old stock interests no- body—the salesman is tired of it and it rarely gets shown. New goods al- ways sell more quickly, not always because they are better in design or in value, but because they interest the salesman more and are always shown first.

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PREFACE

PREFACE  NO attempt has hitherto been made to produce a work for the Tailoring Trade which could aspire to the scope and purpose of an encyclopædia. Such a project has only been rendered possible by the co-operation of men of diverse gifts and varied knowledge. In practically every case specialists asked to deal with a subject accepted the offer and gave of their best.

 In undertaking a task of this nature, breadth of view was the main con- sideration—the Clothing Trade being looked upon as a whole. It was imper- ative to remember in such a survey that not only is there the high-class tai- lor conducting an exclusive trade, but the medium-class bespoke tailor whose work is also individual, and the colossal ready-to-wear or wholesale branch. A reasonable outlook shows these as parts of a great industry. Each can learn from the other : the bespoke trade teaching style and the whole- sale trade methods of production. The Editor is grateful to all those in every section of the trade who have collaborated with him and spared no pains to make the work a success. He would like to express thanks to Mr. William Cooling Lawrence for his wise and temperate introduction; to Mr. Frank Chitham for a candid and rea- soned view of the future of the trade; to Messrs. Hawkes & Co. and Mr. Charles Howell for the loan of various illustrations; to Messrs. Dormeuil Frères for photographs; to Mr. J. D. Higgins for his views on trimmings; to various West End masters for drafts of fashionable garments—indeed, to one and all who have contributed articles, drawn diagrams, or given permis- sion to reproduce illustrations.

IT is impossible within the limited space at my disposal to do more than sketch in brief outline my opinion of the importance and complexity of the Tailoring Industry. In literature the genius of Carlyle has not disdained to speculate on the philosophy of clothes. In the progress of wool from the sheep’s back in Australia to the mills of Bradford, it is amazing to reflect on the labour and technical processes re- quired to produce the cloth, the raw material of the Industry. On its wholesale side the tailoring trade provides ample scope for organ- ising skill and the employment of large amounts of capital; while in the fashionable shops of the West End of London the trade reaches almost the dignity of an art, in which accuracy of cut and perfection of workmanship are displayed in material of the highest quality. To the individual, happily endowed with the requisite industry, intel- ligence, and attention to detail, the vocation of a tailor offers an interesting career, with well-paid posts on the way and brilliant prizes at the top. The youthful apprentice, developing into the well-trained journeyman, may in a comparatively short time aspire to qualify as a cutter, and finally assume the responsibilities of an independent master. Moreover, for the ambitious journeyman who seeks to leave the workshop for the cutting- room, there are no very serious obstacles to surmount. He can learn the art of cutting, either as a student in one of the various technical schools which specialise in that branch of education, or as the private pupil of some prac- tical cutter. Admittedly, in no department of human activity is success altogether independent of external circumstances, but in few callings is skill so certain to assure success as in tailoring, for in few vocations are there more op- portunities for the display of skill and of reaping its legitimate rewards. To the individual workman, tailoring opens up a career of unexceptional promise. As a branch of manufacture on a wholesale scale, the production of countless garments of standard sizes and patterns cannot escape that complaint of soulless monotony to which the use of machinery and the division of labour have reduced all mass-production. But the charge, in so far as it is true, applies in no higher degree to tailoring than to any other form of mechanised industry.

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Dressmaking and Tailoring broadly

Dressmaking and Tailoring broadly refers to those who make, repair or alter clothing for a profession. A dressmaker will traditionally make custom clothing for women, ranging from dresses and blouses to full evening gowns (also historically called a mantua-maker or a modiste). Whereas a tailor will do the same, but usually for men’s clothing - especially suits. The terms essentially refer to a specific set of hand and machine sewing skills, as well as pressing 

techniques that are unique to the construction of tradi- tional clothing. This is separate to ‘made to measure’, which uses a set of preexisting patterns. Usually, a bespoke tailored suit or dress will be com- pletely original and unique to the customer, and hence such items have been highly desirable since the trade first appeared in the thirteenth century. The Oxford English Dictionary states that the word ‘tailor’ first came into usage around the 1290s, and undoubtedly by this point, tailoring guilds, as well as those of cloth merchants and weavers were well established across Europe.  As the tailoring profession has evolved, so too have the methods of tai- loring. There are a number of distinctive business models which modern tailors may practice, such as ‘local tailoring’ where the tailor is met locally, and the garment is produced locally too, ‘distance tailoring’, where a gar- ment is ordered from an out-of-town tailor, enabling cheaper labour to be used - which, in practice can now be done on a global scale via e-commerce websites, and a ‘travelling tailor’, where the man or woman will travel be- tween cities, usually stationing in a luxury hotel to provide the client the same tailoring services they would provide in their local store. These pro- cesses are the same for both women’s and men’s garment making.  Pattern making is a very important part of this profession; the construc- tion of a paper or cardboard template from which the parts of a garment are traced onto fabric before cutting our and assembling. A custom dressmaker (or tailor) frequently employs one of three pattern creation methods; a ‘flat- pattern method’ which begins with the creation of a sloper or block (a basic pattern for a garment, made to the wearer’s measurements), which can then be used to create patterns for many styles of garments, with varying neck- lines, sleeves, dart placements and so on. Although it is also used for wom- enswear, the ‘drafting method’ is more commonly employed in menswear and involves drafting a pattern directly onto pattern paper using a variety of   straightedges and curves. Since menswear rarely involves draping, pattern- making is the primary preparation for creating a cut-and-sew woven gar- ment. The third method, the ‘pattern draping method’ is used when the pat- ternmaker’s skill is not matched with the difficulty of the design. It involves creating a muslin mock-up pattern, by pinning fabric directly on a dress form, then transferring the muslin outline and markings onto a paper pat- tern or using the muslin as the pattern itself.  Dressmaking and tailoring has become a very well respected profession; dressmakers such as Pierre Balmain, Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Coco Chanel have gone on to achieve international acclaim and fashion notoriety. Balmain, known for sophistication and elegance, once said that ‘dressmaking is the architecture of movement.’ Whilst tailors, due to the nature of their profession - catering to men’s fashions, have not garnered such levels of individual fame, areas such as ‘Savile Row’ in the United Kingdom are today seen as the heart of the trade.

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WHY A HISTORY OF WESTERN FASHION?

WE ALL HAVE an intuitive sense of what clothes mean. When you walk into a room or down the street, even without thinking about it, you immediately take note of clothing clues and judge the wearers accordingly. You can usu- ally tell at a glance whether a person is rich, poor, or somewhere in the mid- dle. Often, you can even guess what someone does for a living—the mes- senger with his pants legs rolled up, the businessman in his suit. And yet, it’s rare that people 

think about what their own clothes signify about their place in the world or their priorities. Clothes are self-expression. If you have a limited range of outfits—say, only capri pants and T-shirts— it’s as though you have a limited range of words in your vocabulary. While many historians concern themselves with the dress of indigenous civilizations, the work of certain designers, or with very specific periods in fashion, I am most interested in the clothes we wear right here and now and how various looks came into vogue. My focus in this book is on Western fashion, with a particular emphasis on America. I will look, piece by piece, at the items most Americans have in their closets and ask, “Do you know where this garment comes from—before Old Navy?” This old thing?, you may think. My answer is yes. Even that ratty band T-shirt has a fascinating history that goes back far before the Steel Wheels tour. While American fashion is often vilified as sloppy or as the poor relation of Parisian couture, I find it full of surprises, beauty, and history. And I love exploring the ways in which and the reasons why clothing changes over time. Before writing this book, I considered myself to be something of a fash- ion expert. I was an educator for twenty-nine years, during which I loved learning as much as I loved teaching. And yet, while working on this book, my learning curve has so profoundly accelerated and my body of knowledge has so increased that I feel as though I’ve gone through graduate school again! The research required was simultaneously daunting and exhilarating. Every day brought exclamations of surprise and wonder.

For example, I have always maintained that fashion is all about context— societal, cultural, historic, economic, and political. But even I was shocked by what a massive fashion shift occurred during the French Revolution. The sumptuous gowns during the reigns of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI became so dazzlingly vast and the wigs and headdresses so loftily high that archi- tecture, interiors, and furniture all had to be reimagined. Then, in a mo- ment, these dramatic silhouettes suddenly vanished, along with the royal court. In their place were dresses so basic that they resembled the simplest of nightgowns. These unbleached cotton garments had no infrastructure and no embellishments. It just goes to show: fashion and history are inex- tricably linked! Why is it, you may ask, that the lion’s share of fashion history books examine fashion in the Western world? The answer is simple: for centuries clothing in the Western world has changed and evolved, while clothing in the East has remained unchanged. The Indian sari; the Chinese cheongsam, or qipao; the Korean hanbok; the Japanese kimono have all stayed the same for thousands of years. Their evolution is in the textile. The kimono, for example, is belted with an obi that must be 12 inches wide and 4.38 yards long. How’s that for prescriptive?

When you think, by contrast, about what happened to the toga, it’s pretty mind-blowing. The toga was just a piece of cloth that you draped around your body to preserve your modesty. The original toga was floor-length, and it was the apparel of the aristocracy. Wealthy Greeks and Romans wore it when gliding around rooms. Outside, the ground was filthy, so the toga became shorter once Romans started to wear it beyond their marble-floored villas. Then, of course, people noticed that the bottom half of the garment became dirtier more quickly than the top, so the toga eventually evolved into separates . . . and today into both modern sportswear and the wrap dress.

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The Gibson Girl

No matter what the creative approach is, it is critical to capture personal vi- sion in the form of the design journal and portfolio. As designers evolve and mature, the fashion portfolio needs to express their current state of mind, design aesthetic, world perceptions and unique life experiences. Designers have an important responsibility to society. They are the beauty and style receptacles, collecting and filtering cultural trends to generate the aesthetic of their times. 

Through careful observation, intensive research, experiments, and studies, documented in design journals and portfolios, designers should strive to create meaningful and personalised garments, cherished by customers for years. Highly competitive fashion companies expect designers to constantly up- date their portfolios reflecting changes in society, technology and trends. The designer’s portfolio is the ultimate expression of their identity, cap- turing a sensibility, style, target customer, market and price point. Nothing is more important for a fashion company than to have a successful match between the company’s business focus and the creative identity of their de- signer. A designer’s portfolio is what companies rely on to assess this match, and get a glimpse into their own future. From cover to cover, the fashion portfolio is the summary of designer’s creative achievements and it is impossible to overstate its significance.

The Gibson Girl The Exposition Universelle held in Paris at the dawn of the new millennium showcased the industrialisation of a modern age. Against the backdrop stood the Gibson Girl, in her delicate swirling white lace skirts designed by Charles Frederick Worth, the grandfather of haute couture. Echoing the curvaceous lines of the popular Art Nouveau style, the favoured silhouette was that of a ‘mature woman,’ with her mono-bosom and ‘s-curve’ shape accentuating a heavily corseted waist. Her long, romantic bishop sleeves and the modest, high-necked gowns were topped with long strands of pearls and wide-brimmed hats with ostrich plumes. 1900s Styles: Tailor-made suits, tea gowns Colours: White, cream, pastel pink, pale blue, mauve Fabrics: Lace, crêpe de chine, chiffon, tulle Designers: Charles Frederick Worth, Jacques Doucet, Callot Soeurs, Drecoll, Redfern, Madame Paquin Fashion Influences: Princess Alexandra, The Gibson Girl, La Gazette du Bon Ton, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar Artists: Giovanni Boldini, John Singer Sargent