Wardrobe Communication: Mastering the Art of Personal Expression, by Amy Fleming. Published August 15, 2016.
Okay, pardon me while I take off my detached reviewer hat. Have I ever worn one of those? I didn’t think so, but what good is a friend with a book blog if she can’t get at least 5 of her impressive 25 followers to go buy her friend’s book?
Hearth Rose’s book, Wardrobe Communication, is live. Because I have had the pleasure of reading it, I’m going to give you my completely unbiased review. Thank God – and Hearth- it is a book chocked full of useful information!
Wardrobe Communication is a short book designed to help its reader ascertain her personal style, her best color palate, and understand that whether we realize it or not, the way we present ourselves to the world around us acts as a form of communication. This, the awareness that my wardrobe acts as communication, was the biggest thing I took away from the book. It certainly however, wasn’t the only thing.
Covering every thing to the difference between style versus fashion to the proper way to wear a bra, Hearth does a masterful job of getting the reader to think about the significance of how we present ourselves without conveying that our clothes are the most important thing about us. On the contrary, rather than asserting that the clothes make the woman, she wants us to understand that our clothes should be an expression of who we are on the inside, whoever that is.
In addition to color and style, she is offers her readers an opportunity to weigh their clothing choices against their vocation, age, and stage of life as these are things we need to consider when deciding what message we want our clothes to display. And again, whether intentional or not, our clothes, just like our words, do send a message.
For example, as a medium toned black woman, I have always known that I look better in saturated autumn colors. What I didn’t realize is that despite the universality of black as a go to color, it should not be a go to color for me. I learned under Hearth’s advice that charcoal gray is my “basic black”, and I’m grateful for that bit of information. In other words, black is not universal and it does not look good on every woman.
I shared some parts of this book with women in my life as I was reading it because the advice was worth sharing. We agree that the best and probably the funniest advice was on the proper way to wear a bra. We laughed together at this right here in my living room:
So, since you are wearing a bra to appear younger and firmer, make it do what it’s there to do. Your nipple is supposed to be about 3-4” below your armpit – no lower. And it’s not supposed to show, so if you’ve nursed a baby or two, you might consider a molded cup bra.
Words to live by, indeed.
You really should check out this book. It’s well worth the expense and you will most certainly glean something from it that you can use. Whether you’re a housewife, an office worker, or just a volunteer at your kids pre-school, Hearth can help you put your best foot forward, but not at the expense of who you are.
Grade: B+
Reading in Between the Life... 
Thanks, Els. I am LOL’ing at the quote you used. You may thank Edith Head for that bit of info… and yes, it makes a huge, age and waistline defying difference if you follow it. 😀 Don’t believe me? Go hike ’em up.
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One question though…why do young firm women wear bras, LOL?
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Modesty mostly, and “arranging things”. As well as jiggle factor. Remember the 70s, when we only paid attention to fashion for those 25 and under and braless was a thing? Fine if you’re a B cup or less, not modest, and ready to own that.
Social/cultural mores control our underwear quite a lot. There’s some interesting stuff in Cheaper by the Dozen (classic children’s story) about the father being incensed by the reduction in number of layers of underthings. That was in the 20s, when fashion was actually shocking.
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You are most welcome. Thank you for everything from your prayers to the advance copy of the book to fashion consultations from fitting rooms via text message.
I wish you unparalleled success!
And yeah. it’s important to wear your bra the way it was meant to be worn. Makes a world of difference.
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I’m going to go off on a bit of side bar… 🙂 “Modesty” in clothing is VERY strongly culturally determined. There were several centuries in the West where the sight of ankles was more immodest than having half your bosom hanging out. And I just laugh at whatever the attempt to shock is these days. Seriously. If you take the clothes in 1915 and hold them up next to the clothes in 1925 and stop to think… you’ll want to take all our great-grandparents some ice cream and apologies. (Remember the bra wasn’t customarily worn until the late 30s, really sometime in the 40s before it was adopted across the board. Whereas mature ladies like ourselves were still wearing corsets during that time, the youth switched from full corsetry to “step ins” to TurboDeathGirdles w/o bras – which they wore with drapey gowns with (sometimes) rather large armholes. Catch an old film… not a reproduction… made for adults during that time and you’ll get an eyeful.)
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There is a lot to consider in what you wrote here because my daughter and I were discussing this a bit yesterday.
Modesty really is culturally determined. When you live in a sauna or near the beach, what would turn heads in the mid-west doesn’t even cause anyone to bat an eye. And frankly, I think it’s fair to say that a guy who is used to looking at women wandering around with bare midriffs and super short lace shorts is not going to be suddenly inflamed by a girl in a tank top and considerably longer pair of shorts, even if they are what the average middle aged woman would consider short.
To say that any and every piece of clothing that falls into XYZ category (shorts, tank tops, swimsuits) is automatically immodest is not to subscribe to the notion of modesty, but rather of uniformity.
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Contrariwise, you can be intentionally immodest by exposing unexpected skin, however slight and random it might be.
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Explain? I understand the words, but I am having trouble formulating an example in my mind’s eye.
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Ah, if one is dating one’s mate, it is often more effective to wear a loosely fit gown with a higher neck and “accidentally” bend over… Generally speaking, for audience-specific blood-pressure-raising, if you’re wearing something covered and a bit here or there flashes, it’s more effective than wearing a dress that just shows it all.
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Gotcha.
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