Sewing Pros pay attention! This book by Linda Przybyszewski is a wonderful history of women and how they dressed themselves and sewed for themselves for the last 125 years. It is getting a lot of national attention with recent reviews in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, and Linda’s appearances on national radio shows like the “Dianne Rehm Show” and “Here and Now.” The book cover even features a review by our own Claire Shaeffer.
If you attended the 2011 ASDP National Educational conference in Portland, you heard Linda present excerpts of this book during her Keynote speech. Her enthusiasm for dressing well, and for the creative energy that sewing brings to the art of getting dressed, was evident as she spoke.
In her book, you can read about the history of the Home Economics movement, attitudes about dressing well, dressing for your size and appropriately for each occasion. She sings the praises of the hat in every woman’s wardrobe and laments its death while also making note of how different body types are fashionable in different eras including a discussion of the current obsession with thinness in today’s culture. There is not a topic that she misses, but too many to list in this review.
The author’s lighthearted approach shows a genuine love for the fashionable dress and how it is effected by society in this well researched book. (She is an associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame). The more you read, the better you will become at discerning where the “history” ends and her “editorial” begins as she walks the reader through the 20th century and its dramatic swings in the economy, style, and culture and how they shaped the dressing habits of American women.
On a personal note, I serve with Linda on the MSDP board and she mentions “Catherine Stephenson of the Association of Sewing and Design Professionals” in her acknowledgements. Plus, my sewing bookshelf holds some of the books and authors she mentions, which I have picked up through the years at antique stores. It now holds this fine book as well.
Written by Rae Cumbie
