It's So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style
by Michelle Tea
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Read in January, 2008
This one was hard to rate, because the essays varied so much in style and quality. I loved, loved, loved Michelle Tea's opening, in which she waxes nostalgic for the most awesome outfit she ever wore: a purple striped mini-dress with purple tights and leg warmers, ballet slippers, and a matching purse and headband. Two essays written by men who had transitioned to a female identity carried an extra urgency, because for the first several years of that process, fashion was their only way to signal...more
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Read in November, 2007
I actually didn't finish this. It became really repetitive about 9 chapters in. These aren't essays (I don't know why I thought they would be) they are short memoirs that mainly (of the 9 I read) concern 30-somethings who were outcasts in junior high, discovered thrift stores/their sexual preferences in high school, tried to fit in/discovered thrift stores or their sexual preference/dropped out of college/started their own one-woman show/zine/band in their 20s, and are now plagued by the fact ...more
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Read in December, 2007
As this was not only the latest from Michelle Tea but also an anthology of my sort of smart ladies writing about clothes and style, and I am a longtime feminist diy-fashionista/thrifter of a slightly obsessive order, I picked it up immediately. Aside from a few essays concerning plastic surgery whose inclusion was a bit of a stretch and whose writing quality was more questionable than others, it was really enjoyable. It dragged in the middle, and it definitely could have been shorter. But it inc...more
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Read in March, 2008
Okay, so I don't care about people's personal style unless they dress like a weirdo, but Nicole G. had some shit in this book and it is Atsuko's copy. There is a queer/feminist girl's English book swap in Japan. WTF!!!! My favorite story in here was by Chelsea Starr, who I have (duh) since Googled and whatever. She writes about growing up poor and the clothes you have to wear when you can't help it, and how people treat you because of it. While I simultaneously do and don't identify as working c...more
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Read in April, 2008
Rarely do I give up on a book and not finish it. This is just one of those ones I couldn't get into. Maybe I wasn't in the right mindset to appreciate it at this point in my life. The label on the back of the book was "BEAUTY". I almost scratched it out and wrote "FEMINISM" in its place. I'm a feminist to a certain degree, but some of the essays in this collection were too radical for me to relate to. It would be a great book for a women's studies class, but just didn't ...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
fashionistas, women with body-image stuff (and who *doesn't* have that?)
This book is what I wish "The Bigger the Better the Tighter the Sweater" had been. It's another series of essays, this time loosely based around fashion and how we construct our identities visually. I thought it was a little heavy on the number of essays by gay folks trying to figure out how to dress (I related more to the essays on feminism vs. fashion - can you be into both?), but overall both an entertaining and thoughtful read. Makes me want to hit my favorite thrift stores righ
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recommends it for:
ladies and gentlemen
well so far i read my own essay and cintra wilson's, plus I got to hear Beth Lissick read hers which was complex and stealthy, and that Trish Robbins has a piece about As Is, this Goodwill outlet with bins that is disarmingly filthy. I think Trish Robbins might actually be wierder than me, though about 5 times more productive. She did this little book on Women Who Kill for Red Wheel Weiser/Cunari that is cute as a button. She had a handsome hippy of a certain age with her.
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Read in March, 2008
Fashion lit without guilt! Picked it up because it included Sandra Tsing Loh. Only recognized three or four other names, but particularly enjoyed Sherilyn Connelly and Nicole Georges. (In fact, I came across a Georges book two days after reading this and thus bought it.) There were definitely repeating themes and tones, but I was expecting that. Good balance of humor and anger. It helped that I'm about the same age of a lot of the writers, in terms of fashion memories.
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
Women who need a break from whatever else they're doing
I was skeptical, but this is a surprisingly good, creative collection of 35 essays on the subject of clothes and womens relationship to them. I got a kick out of it; good entertainment reading.
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I was a bit dissapointed. A fantastic roster or writers, but some of my favs need to freshen it up a bit.
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the forward is the best. everything else is fun, but just read the forward and you will be set.
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