100 Unforgettable Dresses

by Hal Rubenstein

Genres: Fashion, History, Non-fiction
Pages: 208
Rating:

Synopsis:

A must for all fashion enthusiasts, movie buffs, and celebrity watchers, 100 Unforgettable Dresses showcases the behind-the-scenes stories of the most memorable, influential dresses from the worlds of fashion, film, television, society, and politics. In this lavishly illustrated style compendium, InStyle magazine fashion director Hal Rubenstein reveals the fascinating origins and legacies of the most stunning dresses ever created. Perfect for backstage story snoops, gossip lovers, die-hard shoppers, and pop culture mavens who can't get enough of these indelible, once-in-a-lifetime creations, 100 Unforgettable Dresses will change the way you think about couture forever.

Hal Rubenstein’s 100 Unforgettable Dresses is probably really lovely to look at in print — I read it in ebook, though on a colour ereader, so the colours were somewhat muted and the images were small, but it was still good to get a look at the items discussed. Sometimes I could’ve used alternate angles, personally, because… well… I had forgotten those dresses and all the details thereof.

I think Rubenstein’s interest doesn’t quite align with mine here, which made this not quite the book for me. I’m interested in fashion history for what clothes and fashion tell us about people, where I think he’s more interested in design for the sake of design. At times that’s a subtle difference, because design does also tell us a lot about purpose, and there were definitely things I found interesting, but it wasn’t always 100% aligned with what I wanted to know. As a gallery of impactful dresses, it’s not a bad book, to be clear.

I did feel a little uncomfortable with the way Rubenstein described some of the dresses, though. There were times when it was almost sexual, where dresses were described as caressing women’s bodies… and there were also several moments about how every woman wants to look beautiful, every woman wants to wear a beautiful dress, etc, that just aren’t true and are annoying.

Overall, not the best of its kind, but I did enjoy some of the reflections on the dresses, and appreciated that he was honest about how silly Princess Diana’s wedding dress looked if you stop to divorce it from that fairytale moment. I know fashions change, and there were lovely things about it, but it drowned her and she didn’t seem comfortable in it.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)