Post­ed by Nat Bernstein

I just came across the book cov­ers for the U.S. and U.K. edi­tions of Women in Clothes at the same time and I hon­est­ly can­not decide which I like bet­ter, they’re both so lovely:

A com­pi­la­tion of thoughts, pho­tographs, inter­views, and illus­tra­tions from the likes of ​“Sheila Heti, Hei­di Julav­its, Leanne Shap­ton & 639 Oth­ers” — includ­ing Cindy Sher­man, Kim Gor­don, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prick­ett, Tavi Gevin­son, Miran­da July, Rox­ane Gay, Lena Dun­ham, and Mol­ly Ring­wald—Women in Clothes began as a sur­vey project of 50 ques­tions prompt­ing women of all ages, nation­al­i­ties, reli­gious affil­i­a­tions, class, and eth­nic­i­ties to con­sid­er how appar­el influ­ences wom­en’s lives day-to-day. This one’s anoth­er excep­tion to the ​“nev­er judge a book by its cov­er” rule: sub­dued yet strik­ing, allur­ing and unusu­al inside and out.

Plus, I sub­mit the fol­low­ing sound­bite from one of the inter­views with­in, a dia­logue between preschool teacher Dina Gold­stein and her son, radio host Jonathan Goldstein:

JONATHAN: Okay, what is your cul­tur­al back­ground and how has that influ­enced how you dress?

DINA: Well, I’m Jew­ish. How has that influ­enced me? I guess I dress like oth­er Jew­ish women. But I don’t like those well-kept women. They all look sort of alike, and they all have make­up. They wear their hair in a pony­tail, their clothes are just so, and their shoes are the lat­est… I can’t be that type.

Relat­ed Content:

• Baruch and Judy Ster­man: Stum­bling on Jew­ish Sup­pli­ers to the Confederacy
• The Thought­ful Dress­er: The Art of Adorn­ment, the Plea­sures of Shop­ping, and Why Clothes Mat­ter by Lin­da Grant