Edith Head: The 50-Year Career of Hollywood’s Greatest Costume Designer – Jay Jorgensen
Reigning the Hollywood costume departments for nearly 60 years was no small feat for visionaire Edith Head. This coffee table book is an amazing comprehensive overview of one of the world’s most celebrated costume designers.
Jay Jorgensen traces her career from her small hometown in Texas, through her early design days in the studios and onto the silver screen, where she worked with the biggest stars of the day. Beautiful full-scale photographs of Head’s work range from behind-the-scenes photos of old Hollywood and its icons to archival images of her work in collections today.
The everlasting impact of Edith Head can be seen through her attention to detail and construction as the culture and society of Hollywood evolved around her. This book is a perfect pairing to the Edith Head retrospective on view at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art through September 2024.
Advanced Style: Older & Wiser – Ari Seth Cohen
Style and fashion can be such fun forms of self-expression! Ari Seth Cohen began documenting women on the streets of NYC briefly after moving there and experiencing the loss of his grandmother.
Cohen has used his directive eye to create a style blog and a documentary on the subject. This book looks at people who go beyond the pop culture of fashion and refuse to dress down. Advanced Style spotlights style icons who are between the ages of 60 and 100: a true reminder that clothing as an expression never goes out of style.
Each spread contains a beautiful street-style fashion portrait with an introduction to the stylist. Every single person interviewed has a magnificent backstory that serves as a tapestry to their outfits of choice.
As the foreword by Simon Doonan points out: “First and foremost, it’s about consideration for others. Creative dressing is simply good manners… dressing up is a gift to those around you.”
This book is also a reminder to live without fear, and to embrace the quirks and details that make each of us so unique. Wear it out loud!
The Power of Style: How Fashion and Beauty Are Being Used to Reclaim Cultures – Christian Allaire
The Power of Style is about just that: Style that emboldens, narrates, speaks out and stands out against the tests of time.
Christian Allaire looks across a style spectrum to highlight some of the ways that people are breaking their norms with fashion and style.
From traditional Ojibwe ribbon shirts to the ways that different cultures use makeup and tattoos, this young adult book profiles how fashion is being used in new and old ways to support individuals and their cultures. Many of these techniques have held up over the course of human history and continue to thrive today, thanks to the help of artisans, designers, activists, wearers and practitioners of these crafts.
This book takes a contemporary look at how people use their fashion choices to claim their identity, relate to their cultures, communicate with their ancestors and much more.
While this is a nonfiction read, a narrative spark of people working against the grain to express themselves through style connects the book throughout.
About the author: Lauren Panichelli is a library associate at the Pioneer Library System’s Norman Public Library East.
The everlasting impact of Edith Head can be seen through her attention to detail and construction as the culture and society of Hollywood evolved around her.