susan earlam ~ horror author

The Style Me Vintage series of books seems to be going from strength to strength at the moment.

Another new edition, hot on the heels of the Style Me Vintage Home book I reviewed recently, is the Style Me Vintage 1940s written by Liz Tregenza.

You might know Liz via her excellent blog Advantage In Vintage. She is a specialist in Fashion & Textile History and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of mid century fashions in particular. She is a collector and trader of vintage clothing and, as you might expect, has a wardrobe to die for.

This book has a focus on the 1940s fashions and styles, and it is really in depth. Liz goes into such detail about brands, labels, heel height, fabrics used and all the reasons behind the choices in fashion in the forties.

There’s particular parts of this book that I’ve had an interest in previously but not had the time to look into in depth, for example, the wedding outfits (non white)  and the utility wear CC41 label and I feel like I’ve learnt more about these parts of history.

In this book Liz teaches you what to look for when shopping for vintage, and how to date a piece of clothing by looking at the zip, and overlocking and the label type.

She also looks at the details of an outfit in great depth, jewellery, handbags, shoes, hats and headscarves.

As with the other Style Me Vintage books there is a clear and readable layout of the content. Despite there being a lot of content in this book and in such depth- it doesn’t at any point feel overwhelming. The photographs are really clear and instructions for any step by steps (headscarf and makeup to name two) are in short and simple step by steps.
You can buy this book here or you might be lucky enough to catch Liz on her book tour, I know she’ll be giving a talk and doing a book signing at this years Festival of Vintage in York (25/26th April) amongst the regular London vintage spots.

Disclosure- I was sent this book for the purposes of this review.