I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in fashion. First, I love how each chapter is broken down by piece/silhouette. It was a nice touch and satisfying to read. Second, I love the sheer amount of detail and interesting stories/anecdotes that the author included. Simply put, I had no idea I was reading a nonfiction book. This was light and not very dense. A pleasure to read throughout the month - I would pick it up and read a chapter every once in awhile. I was going to complain that the author did not address class or race or politics, but she did all of that in the conclusion.

I was particularly interested in all of the practicality facts. There were even some cool tidbits about the history of cocktails.

Thanks to the publisher for a NetGalley copy!

Skirts is a comprehensive cultural review of clothing in America. It's a fascinating vehicle for looking at history and knowing the story behind the story, so to speak. I found it entirely readable and the chapters are clearly stated so a reader could skip to a section that interested them if they wanted to do a bit of research. It should come with a warning because as I read, I really wanted to immediately go out shopping and buy a few skirts and dresses to replace what I normally wear... pants.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Now, I am going shopping!

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of Skirts in exchange for an honest review. There is a lot in this book that I did not know. The information is delivered well and it was interesting. Each chapter encompassed a different fashion for dresses or skirts.

This is a really interesting read tracing the cultural and fashion history of dresses and skirts from ancient Greece to the present. It is well researched and has lots of footnotes, but the tone is not so academic that a casual reader couldn't enjoy it. I hope this author takes on other topics in this vein.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

The book is engaging and written as if the author is having a conversation with the reader, which is fun.
We learn everything there is to know about wearing skirts and dresses. I love fashion and the history is interesting, but not all that controversial. My question is why devote a whole book to the discussion of mostly women wearing skirts? It is just not that big of a deal to me.
It would have been more interesting if pictures were included in the ARC.

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read and review this book. The opinions expressed are my own.
What a fascinating look at fashion? It made me want to start wearing more skirts and dresses. This is a well-written book about the changes in women's fashion throughout the twentieth century. The author describes the changes, the designer and the reason for the changes. A real eye opener about fashion and how it related to real life. Lots of interesting facts!

I am not usually one for anything related to fashion. While Skirts is a history and the evolvement of women's wear...it is also about the struggle of women with regard to their femininity and place in a man's world. My favorite portion of this was when the author described the tennis clothing "war". I laughed a few times during this section.

I received and E-ARC for this one and will definitely need to check out the physical. I missed all of the beautiful pictures this is said to have. Despite not having these visuals, this was a very interesting and well done book. There was so much I didn't know about the history of women's clothing, and really enjoyed this one.

I appreciate St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

I received this an ARC through Netgalley. I was intrigued and excited when I started to read this book. By the end I was happy I was done. There were zero pictures in the ARC, ziltch. I have no idea if that is how it is made to published, but if it is they missed a HUGE opportunity. While the book was excellently researched, I felt there was no flow and made it very hard to stay committed to it. If I hadn't been reading as an ARC I would have quit half way through the book.

A writer writes a book about the history of skirts? Crazy, right? Surprise it's actually quite interesting. She looks at how skirts have changed throughout the years.

Skirts helped revolutionize the woman's movement. They have gone under many changes throughout the years, and just like any fashion, the different lengths come and go as fashionable. I wish there would have been pictures but I received the Kindle ARC and there weren't any. They may be in the final book.

I learned some interesting facts while reading, which I always like in a book. What amazed me, perhaps the most, was why the poodle skirt was called a poodle skirt. Believe me, it's not what you think, unless you are some fashion guru.

If you are interested in fashion or history, I recommend you grab this book. It published on September 6, 2022.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the Kindle Version of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

📚 Happy Reading 📚😊

#netgalley
#stmartinspress

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the early audio version of this book. It is a fascinating look at history - of fashion, women, and history in general. I will be purchasing a hard copy of this in the hopes it has a lot of photos!

I really enjoyed this and I will probably listen to it as an audiobook when it comes to my library. I found the history interesting and engaging and it is the best kind of nonfiction.

An amazing deep dive into the fashion of dresses and skirts in a conversational style that's easy to read. I was hooked from the beginning despite not knowing much about skirts in the beginning. Great for beginners, history buffs, and people who like watching sewing/historical fashion videos on youtube. I highly recommend it!

Good read and you'll learn a thing or two. It flows nicely and it's enjoyabele,so when you get a chance pick up a copy and enjoy.

A History of Women’s Skirts and Dresses

This is a fascinating walk through the changing styles of women’s clothing focusing on skirts and dresses. From my teen years to the present I have been interested in women’s fashion and the changes following changes in society, but in some cases leading the way.

The book is divided into ten sections. All are informative, filled with details about the fashion designers as well as their creations. My favorite was the one on Chanel. Her fashions changed the way women viewed themselves. Her unstructured clothing gave women more freedom and led to women moving from the home to the wider world. Her little black dress is a classic that is still venerated today.

Tennis fashions were interesting going from calf length dresses that must have been difficult to run in to the very short skirts worn today which give women a much treated range of movement. Diane von Furstenberg’s wrap dress was the height of practicality. I remember how easy they were to slip into and you always looked stylish.

Another interesting area is hemlines. Before WWI hems were long because the time was elegant and fabric available. After WWI and WWII hemlines came up because fabric was not as available. However, as sheer fashion statements the maxi dress and the mini dress were either fun to wear or a nuisance. I was glad to get rid of my maxi’s.

If you’re fascinated by fashion this is an excellent book. I do hope there are illustrations in the published version. It was hard to visualize the fashions I wasn’t familiar with from the written descriptions in the ARC I received.

I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for access to this arc.

Once again I got off to a rough start with another book and had to power through the first chapter or two before I felt more at ease. This book should maybe be called “Dresses” because that’s the focus though I’ll admit that the changes in the hemlines of the skirt parts of dresses and later the chapters in minis and midi skirts are important.

Chrisman-Campbell is a “fashion historian, curator, and journalist” and she approaches the subject as a lesson in the changes in women’s status/jobs/freedom/etc as told via the clothes of the 20th century though now (2022). It started off a bit dry and technical, more like a textbook or thesis in the intro and first chapter. Then either I got used to this style or she relaxed a bit and it became more interesting to me.

I certainly learned a great deal about fashion designers I’d never heard of including Mariano Fortuny images of whose Delphos dress make me want to have one. I had seen pictures of Suzanne Lenglen displaying her amazing athleticism on tennis courts but didn’t realize how she revolutionized what women wore to play the sport and indeed, along with other tennis players, helped open a new type of fashion – ‘sportswear.’

Whatever is in fashion one decade will almost certainly spark the opposite the next ten years. World War I caused women to turn away from the strict mourning of the Victorian age as after 1918 too much of the population would be in black but then along came the first LBD. Bias cut (using lots of fabric) dresses of the 30s and the first strapless dresses both fell victim to war rationing only for Edith Head’s dress that Elizabeth Taylor wore and Dior’s first collection to reinvent them. Bar Dresses, Taxi Dresses, and Wrap Dresses all came along. Some stayed or were reimagined. Mini skirts were initially more about youth than sex. They were followed by midi skirts in the 70s that caused mass rebellion against fashion houses dictating what women would wear.

Though there were a few nods to women of color (Serena Williams’s daring tennis court styles) early in the book, it took until almost the end before Chrisman-Campbell began talking about them, and anyone other than white and skinny women, again. Jennifer Lopez and her famous Versace gown was instrumental in getting Google to work on Google pics. Marilyn Monroe might have done her iconic “nude” dress in 1962 but Rihanna’s statement “naked dress” in 2014 brought the style forward 50 years and amped it up. Wither dresses? Well men are wearing them now, too.

The arc I read did not have any images but the publishers promise that the finished book will include them. This might be a better book for scholars rather than the casual reader but I did learn quite a bit. B-

Skirts is an interesting look at how fashion played a part in the history of women and the accomplishments of women in history. Marie Curie, Katherine G. Johnson, and many others all wore skirts while making history. Skirts did not stand in the way of women making history, Women made history and blazed a trail for us to follow today, no matter what we wear.

It is a truism often stated that “Clothes make the man.” Well, the same can be said of women as this interesting social history clearly shows. Its author is a good guide as readers discover from the start of the book.

In her introduction, the author shares her thoughts, feelings, wardrobe choices and professional experiences. Next are chapters on many iconic dresses. These include, for example, the little black dress, the tennis dress and the strapless dress, among the well-known ones. There are also garments with which I was unfamiliar as in the bar suit and the Delphos.

Each chapter is packed with facts. Readers learn about the history of the featured garment, its construction and some of the famous names who wore it. My only quibble is that I wish there had been illustrations in each chapter. Note though that I read an advanced copy of this title and the final version may well be filled with photos.

The end of this title includes notes and a helpful bibliography for those who want to explore further. Anyone interested in fashion history may well enjoy this title.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this title. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed Skirts for the most part but was disappointed that there was a lack of photos in the ARC. That took away a chunk of my enjoyment and most likely colored my take on it. I spent my first 20 plus years in school uniforms, skirts and dresses with the exception of kids play clothes in the Summer, I gradually made the change to pants and have never looked back. Honestly I don't have the body type for the wrap dress nor the legs for it. As a child of the 60's the Maxi was my choice if I wasn't in my uniform. Some of the names and styles covered in Skirts were unfamiliar to me and that's on me. Now I want to know what I've been missing. What I did enjoy - the history and the politics. A more straightforward chronology would have helped keep things organized as I was reading. I got a bit lost several times.
Overall this was an interesting look at fashion and it's impact on women's history. I won't hesitate to recommend it to my friends who really know the ins and outs of fashion. My thanks to the publisher St. Martin's and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I struggled to get into the book and to stay engaged. It was drier than I expected and found myself having to google a lot of things due to lack of illustrations or pictures for such a visual topic.

For much of my adolescence and early adulthood, the primary information I took from TV and movies was the clothing worn by the female characters. It has been a complete shock, as I’ve aged, to realize that I completely missed the plot of most stories or films because I gazed too long at the costumes. SKIRTS: FASHIONING MODERN FEMININITY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY is a fascinating book filled with detailed anecdotes and historical references for many of those well-known fashion choices I remember so well. This book is a joy to read for those of us who easily conjure up specific outfits worn, and frequently referenced, in the 20th Century. My only complaint is the absence of photographs. I had an early review copy and perhaps the later versions will have some; but they would be such a great addition to an otherwise wonderful book. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.