Women from the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us - Hardcover

Bergstein, Rachelle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061969613 ISBN 13: 9780061969614

Publisher: Harper, 2012

Synopsis

What is it about a pair of shoes that so enchants women of all ages, demographics, political affiliations, and style tribes? Part social history, part fashion record, part pop-culture celebration, "Women from the Ankle Down" seeks to answer that question as it unfolds the story of shoes in the twentieth century. The tale begins in the rural village of Bonito, Italy, with a visionary young shoemaker named Salvatore Ferragamo, and ends in New York City, with a fictional socialite and trendsetter named Carrie Bradshaw. Along the way it stops in Hollywood, where Judy Garland first slipped on her ruby slippers; New Jersey, where Nancy Sinatra heard something special in a song about boots; and the streets of Manhattan, where a transit strike propelled women to step into new cutting-edge athletic shoes. Fashion aficionado Rachelle Bergstein shares the stories behind these historical moments, interweaving the design innovations and social changes that gave each one its lasting significance and appeal. Bergstein shows how the story of shoes is the story of women, told from the ankle down. Beginning with the well-heeled Suffragettes in the 1910s, women have fought for greater freedom and mobility, a struggle that exploded in the 1960s with the Women's Liberation Movement, and culminated in the new millennium with our devotion to personal choice. Featuring interviews with designers, historians, and cultural experts, and a cast of real life characters from Marilyn Monroe to Jane Fonda, "Women from the Ankle Down" is a lively, compelling look at the evolution of modern women and the fashion that reflects-and has shaped-their changing lives.

About this title

Review:

"If style defines the woman, and shoes a woman's style, then "ooh la la", here's the definitive history and guide--everything from Chinese bound feet to Ferragamo, from Hollywood favorites to running up one's credit card on the "sine qua non" of fashion." --Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don't Get Fat

About the Author:

Rachelle Bergstein graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English Literature at Vassar College. Upon graduation, she moved to Brooklyn where she worked as a cocktail waitress before setting into an entry-level job at a literary agency; she has worked in publishing for the past seven years. Women from the Ankle Down is her first book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0061969613
• ISBN 13: 9780061969614
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304