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O P E N A N D
C L O T H E D
FOR THE PASSIONATE
CLOTHES LOVER
Review from Threads,
October/November 2000
Article from The East Bay Express, May 1999
East Bay Monthly Interview, October 1999
Andrea Speaks Out on Fashion
Women In Aikido, Andrea's first book
Press Release, printable format
(Reprinted from Threads, October/November, 2000)
Open and
Clothed
by Andrea Siegel. Agapanthus Books, P.O. Box 770103,
Woodside, NY, 11377; 718-803-9887; agabooks.com; 1999; $24.00; softcover;
342pp.
Obsessed with clothes and
don't have a thing to wear? Maybe this will help. Siegel's weighty
but fascinating tome is subtitled For the Passionate Clothes Lover.
Actually, I might have called it For Those Passionately Thinking
About Clothes, since this big, sparsely illustrated book is less
about clothes themselves than it is about the endless ways we relate
to everything about clothing, our love/hate affair with wearables
and ourselves as wearers. But this isn't a textbook or a polemic,
it's much richer and more fun than that. Let's say it's primarily
a compulsively compelling collection of confessions from the clothing-addled
and fashion-enscorceled, heavily interwoven with anecdotes, quotes,
musings, lamentations, and self-exploration advice from the equally
addled but seriously amused author, who is a sewer and quilter, thrift-shop
denizen, and great grand-daughter of the founder of famed New York
discount department store S. Klein's.
Listen to a few chapter
headings: The Personal Politics of Frivolity; You Look Like Death;
Seeking Help from Others. . . How Humiliating!; Facing your Closet's
Contents, Maintenance, and the Dark Side. And to a few good quotes:
". . . .a good deal of [the language of clothes] is a form of private
muttering" (Anne Hollander); "The best couturier in the world is love"
(Josephine Baker); "Yearning makes the heart deep" (St. Augustine
of Hippo); and "Clothing brings us joy" (Issey Miyake).
With all its kaleidoscopic,
multi-dimensional range, Siegel's intoxicated inquisition offers no
ready explanations or quick solutions . . . but you might find yourself
within it. Keep a copy nearby, and dip into it whenever you dare.
- David Coffin, Threads, Oct./Nov. 2000 |