Friday, February 14, 2020

Vivienne Westwood by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vergara, Laura Callaghan


Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've enjoyed very many of these young children's biographies about a host of different people, all written by the same author but often with a different artist. In this case it was Callaghan who contributed some beautiful and bright illustrations, in keeping with the subject matter since Westwood is a British fashion designer, who all but single-handedly brought punk and new wave fashions (so-called!) into the mainstream.

I should say right here that I have less than zero respect for the modeling-fashion industrial complex, which is why I like this book. Westwood was very much a rebel and her spirited approach, even though in many ways buying into the shallow and pretentious world of fashion, was to turn things on their head. She also preferred books to fashion magazines, and encouraged a recycling sort of an attitude by suggesting people buy fewer clothes and wear therm more often.

This book tells an interesting and colorful story and I commend it as a worthy read.