Book Review 5
Mar. 17th, 2011 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlight Title: The History of Women's Underwear
Authors: Muriel Barbier & Shazia Boucher
Summary: The history of women's underwear in western, european culture, discussing the types, formation, colors, ecomics, spread and modern day repercussions of developement. Mostly from a French perspective
I'm not sure if I can split this into two different sections like I normally do. It's difficult to say what I liked and disliked about this book, whne mostly it was just okay. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, in fact it was really interesting to look at the many different kinds of underwear and how things developed, espeacially when the authors tried to look at things from a little bit of a femenist standpoint as well. But I guess I can try.
What I liked: Well, the topic. When I saw that this was a book about women's underwear, that intrigued me. IT also seemed like Babier and Boucher did a lot of really great research towards this project, and were also very knowledgable, considering that at least one of them works in the underwear industry.
What I didn't like: I didn't know it at first, but after reading several French titles (translated into English of course), but these women are French. That itself is not what I disliked about this book, however, it does lends itself to the fact that they tend to focus only Western culture, europe inside of that, and France inside of that. I cans see why they did it, as they say in the book France is huge in the ligerie industry, but at the same time, I would have appreciated a wider spread. From what little research I've seen about Asian cultures in this area, they have a facinating underwear culture, especially from yester year. It's not a huge point (though I seem to be writing a lot about it), because the book is primarily about the developement of lengerie, but it almost makes the title seem like a misnomer.
What was a little in the middle: The pictures in this book are gorgeous, color, often full page pictures of modern lengerie models as well as old fashion corsets and adverts. And I think it would deminish the book about underwear if you didn't feature any pictures of underwear. However, this got to the point of excess. I read almost eighty pages every night (seventy something when I finished it), and I still feel like I wasn't reading very much. Not to mention, somtimes a sentence would cut off at the bottom of a page, and there there would be four or five sheets, not just pages, but sheets of full page pictures. THAT is just a little destracting.
But Overall it was: A Good Read
But See for yourself: The History of Women's Underwear by Muriel Barbier & Shazia Boucher
(Both the Male and Female Volumes, sorry)
Now Reading: Trickster edited by Matt Dembicki
Project WC still at: 36834
Authors: Muriel Barbier & Shazia Boucher
Summary: The history of women's underwear in western, european culture, discussing the types, formation, colors, ecomics, spread and modern day repercussions of developement. Mostly from a French perspective
I'm not sure if I can split this into two different sections like I normally do. It's difficult to say what I liked and disliked about this book, whne mostly it was just okay. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, in fact it was really interesting to look at the many different kinds of underwear and how things developed, espeacially when the authors tried to look at things from a little bit of a femenist standpoint as well. But I guess I can try.
What I liked: Well, the topic. When I saw that this was a book about women's underwear, that intrigued me. IT also seemed like Babier and Boucher did a lot of really great research towards this project, and were also very knowledgable, considering that at least one of them works in the underwear industry.
What I didn't like: I didn't know it at first, but after reading several French titles (translated into English of course), but these women are French. That itself is not what I disliked about this book, however, it does lends itself to the fact that they tend to focus only Western culture, europe inside of that, and France inside of that. I cans see why they did it, as they say in the book France is huge in the ligerie industry, but at the same time, I would have appreciated a wider spread. From what little research I've seen about Asian cultures in this area, they have a facinating underwear culture, especially from yester year. It's not a huge point (though I seem to be writing a lot about it), because the book is primarily about the developement of lengerie, but it almost makes the title seem like a misnomer.
What was a little in the middle: The pictures in this book are gorgeous, color, often full page pictures of modern lengerie models as well as old fashion corsets and adverts. And I think it would deminish the book about underwear if you didn't feature any pictures of underwear. However, this got to the point of excess. I read almost eighty pages every night (seventy something when I finished it), and I still feel like I wasn't reading very much. Not to mention, somtimes a sentence would cut off at the bottom of a page, and there there would be four or five sheets, not just pages, but sheets of full page pictures. THAT is just a little destracting.
But Overall it was: A Good Read
But See for yourself: The History of Women's Underwear by Muriel Barbier & Shazia Boucher
(Both the Male and Female Volumes, sorry)
Now Reading: Trickster edited by Matt Dembicki
Project WC still at: 36834
