ShockedShocked
My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me
Title rated 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 24 ratings(24 ratings)
Book, 2013
Current format, Book, 2013, 1st ed, Available .eBook
Also offered as eBook, Available. Available
From the acclaimed author of Stuffed: an intimate, richly illustrated memoir, written with charm and panache, that juxtaposes two fascinating lives—the iconoclastic designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the author’s own mother—to explore how a girl fashions herself into a woman.
Audrey Morgen Volk, an upper-middle-class New Yorker, was a great beauty and the polished hostess at her family’s garment district restaurant. Elsa Schiaparelli—“Schiap”—the haute couture designer whose creations shocked the world, blurred the line between fashion and art, and believed that everything, even a button, has the potential to delight.
Audrey’s daughter Patricia read Schiap’s autobiography, Shocking Life, at a tender age, and was transformed by it. These two women—volatile, opinionated, and brilliant each in her own way—offered Patricia contrasting lessons about womanhood and personal style that allowed her to plot her own course.
Moving seamlessly between the Volks’ Manhattan and Florida milieux and Schiap’s life in Rome and Paris (among friends such as Dalí, Duchamp, and Picasso), Shocked weaves Audrey’s traditional notions of domesticity with Schiaparelli’s often outrageous ideas into a marvel-filled, meditation on beauty, and on being a daughter, sister, and mother, while demonstrating how a single book can change a life.
The author shares the lessons about womanhood and personal style she learned from both her mother, an upper-middle-class New Yorker who was the polished hostess at her family's garment district restaurant, and Elsa Schiaparelli, the outrageous, iconoclastic Italian fashion designer. 30,000 first printing.
Shares the lessons about womanhood and personal style the author learned from both her mother, a New Yorker who was the polished hostess at her family's garment district restaurant, and Elsa Schiaparelli, the iconoclastic Italian fashion designer.
"[A] memoir ... that juxtaposes two fascinating lives--the iconoclastic designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the author's own mother--to explore how a girl fashions herself into a woman"--Dust jacket flap.
Audrey Morgen Volk, an upper-middle-class New Yorker, was a great beauty and the polished hostess at her family’s garment district restaurant. Elsa Schiaparelli—“Schiap”—the haute couture designer whose creations shocked the world, blurred the line between fashion and art, and believed that everything, even a button, has the potential to delight.
Audrey’s daughter Patricia read Schiap’s autobiography, Shocking Life, at a tender age, and was transformed by it. These two women—volatile, opinionated, and brilliant each in her own way—offered Patricia contrasting lessons about womanhood and personal style that allowed her to plot her own course.
Moving seamlessly between the Volks’ Manhattan and Florida milieux and Schiap’s life in Rome and Paris (among friends such as Dalí, Duchamp, and Picasso), Shocked weaves Audrey’s traditional notions of domesticity with Schiaparelli’s often outrageous ideas into a marvel-filled, meditation on beauty, and on being a daughter, sister, and mother, while demonstrating how a single book can change a life.
The author shares the lessons about womanhood and personal style she learned from both her mother, an upper-middle-class New Yorker who was the polished hostess at her family's garment district restaurant, and Elsa Schiaparelli, the outrageous, iconoclastic Italian fashion designer. 30,000 first printing.
Shares the lessons about womanhood and personal style the author learned from both her mother, a New Yorker who was the polished hostess at her family's garment district restaurant, and Elsa Schiaparelli, the iconoclastic Italian fashion designer.
"[A] memoir ... that juxtaposes two fascinating lives--the iconoclastic designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the author's own mother--to explore how a girl fashions herself into a woman"--Dust jacket flap.
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- New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
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