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The Meaning of Sunglasses: And a Guide to Almost All Things Fashionable
The dictionary Anna Wintour might keep in her desk drawer
Miuccia Prada said, �Everyone who is smart says they hate fashion. . . . I have asked many super-serious people, �Then why is fashion so popular?� Nobody can answer that question.� Now the author of the popular Guardian column Ask Hadley does just that in The Meaning of Sunglasses, examining the joys, silliness, an...more
Miuccia Prada said, �Everyone who is smart says they hate fashion. . . . I have asked many super-serious people, �Then why is fashion so popular?� Nobody can answer that question.� Now the author of the popular Guardian column Ask Hadley does just that in The Meaning of Sunglasses, examining the joys, silliness, an...more
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published
January 31st 2008
by Viking Adult
(first published 2008)
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Blah. Hadley Freeman is funny sometimes but she's trying too hard... Also badly edited. I expected more... not sure more of what, just more.
This week’s headline? “looking after oneself”
Why this book? need a makeover
Which book format? first edition hardback
Primary reading environment? someplace very unfashionable
Any preconceived notions? “arrogant verbal hyperbole”
Identify most with? “uneducated, Enquirer-reading dullard”
Three little words? "Bless you, Kate”
Goes well with? “an organic papaya”
Recommend this to? “a fashion airhead”
I aspire to a personal style that situates me somewhere between Kate Moss and Kate Middleton, with a hint...more
Why this book? need a makeover
Which book format? first edition hardback
Primary reading environment? someplace very unfashionable
Any preconceived notions? “arrogant verbal hyperbole”
Identify most with? “uneducated, Enquirer-reading dullard”
Three little words? "Bless you, Kate”
Goes well with? “an organic papaya”
Recommend this to? “a fashion airhead”
I aspire to a personal style that situates me somewhere between Kate Moss and Kate Middleton, with a hint...more
I had a truly dysfunctional relationship with this informal & humorous lexicon of fashion. It's about 98% hateful, but just when I was ready to throw it across the room, Hadley Freeman would say something really incisive and compelling about the fashion industry and I would keep reading. Her frank dissections of the industry and how advertising is the tail that wags the dog are interesting (although I guess it's no secret that fashion magazines are driven by ads), but for a fashion journalis...more
I needed some light reading for a break so I picked this up after reading a review. While I don't think I learned anything from it, I did laugh a great deal, many times out loud, which was a lot of fun. The author definitely can turn a phrase and writes very well. I was laughing through the whole thing. The book is divided into "subjects" which really are just rather stream of consciousness, but supposedly alphabetical. Here's some from her heading "Sizing: the nonexistent myth": "...billions of...more
This is my second fashion-themed library check-out of the summer, along with The Thoughtful Dresser. I brought this book to the beach, thinking it would be as easy to dip in and out of its encyclopedia-type entries, (e.g. "Sunglasses, the meaning of") as the ocean. Unfortunately, it was a bit too erudite for the beach. Yup, fashion too erudite. Too erudite for the beach, but a lot of fun to peruse in my living room.
Delightfully snarky fashion lexicon. Freeman doesn't so much define terms as meander about them, but her meanderings tend to be amusing, and contain actually useful information. The potentially most useful--and funniest--bit was her (necessarily short) section on clothes that men understand.
I love reading about style and fashion. This book is a series of short essays on different fashion trends or items. The author also gives the best defense of the fashion industry I have ever read, and provides the final word on the skinny models cause anorexia debate.
Despite having no discernable interest in fashion (I work from home, mostly in pajamas, so there's no real need), I absolutely love Hadley Freeman's Guardian newspaper column. She's so dry, funny and down to earth. I think I gave a little squeal when I heard she'd written a book.
The Meaning of Sunglasses is subtitled "A guide to almost all things fashionable" and it's certainly that. Set out in alphabetical order (which took me a shameful amount of time to work out - I kept wondering how the top...more
The Meaning of Sunglasses is subtitled "A guide to almost all things fashionable" and it's certainly that. Set out in alphabetical order (which took me a shameful amount of time to work out - I kept wondering how the top...more
This is a very British perspective on fashion. In places amusing, in places almost impossible to parse, Freeman manages to rattle on for over two hundred pages without saying much at all.
Very funny book. Especially liked the part about Karl Lagerfeld. Lots of great quotables in the book, like the part about straight men who so believe in the power of fashion, that they think wearing a pink shirt will make them turn gay. Or the women who shop from Gap Kids (giggle, giggle), and her response of something like, I'm so glad the onset of child obesity has expanded your wardrobe options. Author is intelligent, funny and clever. Sometimes did not agree with all the author's opinions an...more
Fun, fun read, even if you think that fashion is superficial and overrated- she agrees.
Witty, amusing fashion writing. Freeman has a great voice.
Not necessarily high quality literature, but entertaining.
Interesting book of essays about fashion. Some of the essays are really amusing. Amazing how people can make such sweeping statements. For example, one writer decides that wearing a clutch purse would hamper your ability to enjoy an evening because you would always have to have it in your hand and couldn't have a drink. Did the thought of putting your purse down never occur to her? Despite the amazing amount of such determined and self-assured opinions about clothes, accessories, etc. the book i...more
I thought the subject and the various entries were clever, but the constant quips about "this silly thing" or "that stupid thing" all got to be quite tiresome, and started to get me annoyed at the author. It started out great, but overall I thought it was a "meh" book, filled with cumbersome "rules of fashion".
Cute, and sorta mildly entertaining.
a perfect book .!!
Either the writer is trying way too hard to sound witty, intelligent and sarcastic, or she really does talk like that. Either way, I couldn't take it any more. The book needed a serious editing job. I had to re-read sentences and paragraphs that were way too long, just one too many times. I finally gave up. It probably would have been a fun read if the wording hadn't been so darn irritating.
Some of this book was mildly entertaining to read, but at times she took herself a little too seriously. I skipped a few chapters that I didn't care about. I found it interesting how Kate Moss and Topshop (indivdually and collectively) have had such power over fashion.
She's a very clever writer, but oh my, what a judgmental, narrow-minded, snippy little thing she is. I just can't agree with the kind of blanket "x fashion item is ALWAYS wonderful/terrible" kind of thinking. I mean, style is personal...right?
This was fucking hilarious. I like reading fashion books when they are written by well paid fashion columnists who tell me that heels are stupid, I'll try to ignore the fact that she calls cardigans "pedophile chic."
Mar 17, 2008
Denise Barber
is currently reading it
I learned that I'm am a complete fashion "don't". I like leopard print, crazy bejeweled glasses and boys with long hair. According to the author, all of those things are fashion atrocities. Oopsy.
There's a lot of funny fashion writing out there, but smart fashion writing is harder to find. Freeman's writing is both, and I enjoyed this book.
The perfect book for an fashionista. I wish Ms Freeman would write more books!
This was fine. Whatever. Next.
May 20, 2013
Milanie
marked it as to-check-out
Apr 26, 2013
Alejandra Bernal
marked it as to-read
Apr 23, 2013
Sam
marked it as to-read
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Hadley Freeman (born 1978) is a columnist and writer for The Guardian, who also contributes to the UK version of Vogue. She was born in New York to Jewish parents, and attended Oxford University. Her first book, The Meaning of Sunglasses, was published in 2008.
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