Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> When I went to work at Barneys over a quarter of a century ago Fred Pressman the owner did not bother to greet me formally or to shake hands. Instead he grabbed a men’s wing tip shoe off a shelf and thrust it into my sweaty nervous paws. “Look at it! No. I mean really look at it!” I sat there in the shoe department looking perplexed and embarrassed like a cat in a litter box taking a poo. “Touch it!” he boomed. “Feel the leather! Really feel it! Look at the stitches fur chrissakes!” This was my baptism. This is when I really began to understand the importance of skill and passion and craft the foundation of great fashion. Up until then I thought of fashion as one big pose-athon. Fash- ion was station identification Fashion was deliciously superficial. Fashion was a delectable facade. You could be a glam-rock whore a pill-popping mod a dippy hippie a pale-faced New Romantic or a hearty Buffalo Girl. Just keep a close eye on the zeitgeist and dress accordingly. Fashion was about transformation. Fashion was costume and costume was identity. How things looked was all that mattered. How things were made and by whom seemed completely irrelevant. Coming to Barneys changed all that. Fred taught me that great fashion needs craft and skill and artisan magic. Without these qualities it was soulless and pointless and had no enduring value. (MP)