STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

twinkle_star · Kenneth Cole

Books on style?

Sevilla · BCBG

I like the Lucky Shopping Manual a lot, as well as the InStyle one. Another one you might want to look at is "Dress Your Best" by the hosts of What Not to Wear, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly. That book I think is more geared toward learning how to best dress your body type though.

NCshopper · Hermes

I really like the Lucky Shopping Manual too. It's mostly just a guide for what items you need in your closet, and less a book on style, but it does have helpful tips on fit.

The other book that I love, love, love is the Frederic Fekkai book A Year of Style. It's has a daily calendar of different things you can do to make yourself look and feel better, and it's all seasonally appropriate. Plus, the pictures are to die for.

minkiki · BCBG

The Pocket Stylist is a GREAT book as are Lucky and InStyle's, together they are pretty good core library for those of us obssessed with our wardrobes. :) I collect style books, other favorites are Duke's THE LOOK, Kathy Finney's Budget Fashionista book both of which just came out in 2006.

Your local library may have a copy of Janet Wallech's Capsule Wardrobe which is a really outdated book in terms of the pics but discusses the idea of color capsules. (mix and match) I was rereading it the other day and colors that I thought were awful combos a few years ago are now current and desired, so funny. It's still one of my favorite fashion books despite it's age.

I also found that keeping a computer file for all those looks I love on line (check out my favorite inspirational site http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/) helps inspire me to change things up. There are a ton of good sites to explore in terms of celeb copycat styling, street fashion, eurofashion ect. I also keep clippings from the 101 fashion mags I subscribe to.

Analyzing exactly what it is that I like about an outfit and then seeing if I can approximate the look with what I already have seems to keep things from becoming stale. I am really working on aquiring less this year and working the excellent pieces I have so having ready access to the clippings and file are proving really helpful. I need to work on taking pics of sucessful outfits though b/c it's so hard to remember otherwise. HIH!

montmarte · Kenneth Cole

Ditto with the Lucky Manual. Although it's not exactly a guide--I like Nylon (it's along the same lines as Sartorialist) and http://www.facehunter.blogspot.com/.

atlgirl · Gucci

Late responding, I know, but I've been on vacation and couldn't remember the title some of my books. One I love - probably over all of them (and I have two InStyle style guides, plus the Lucky manual) is US magazine's Secrets of Celebrity Style. The text is sometimes a little catty, but it does a great job (IMO) of dissecting some of the styles celebrities wear. They have categories like "Creative", "All American Style", etc and I really found this a great read.