Review: Dreaming of Dior

Dreaming of Dior: Every Dress Tells a Story
by Charlotte Smith ~ ISBN 978-1-4391-8755-5
292 pages

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  (And I often thought of how much Aunt Monica would like it.)

This is the story of a collection of dresses and the women who wore them.  The story of clothes is the story of history, romance, rebellion, passion, disappointments, and adventure.  And in this book it is all explored in digestible little bites.

The author received a collection of vintage dresses that was the lifetime passion of her godmother, Doris.  Doris also collected the stories of where the dresses came from.  Each dress is sketched in color on one page, with the story on the facing page.  The dresses are from the 1800s to the 1990s, from the lower classes to pinnacle of high society.

The author herself, I think is high society, so the book is sprinkled with little anecdotes of her attending a wedding in Morocco and being charmed by Prince Albert, or the dress she wore for a date when the young man flew her to New York for some shopping and then down to Aruba for dinner.  Or coming home to her flat in London to discover that the 'Diana' who had occasionally called and left messages for her roommate happened to be the Princess of Wales.

It's all great fun, and many of the dresses are as inspiring as the women who wore them.