Arbiter of Fashion
So Far. By Hardy Amies. (Collins. 15s.)
40 trouble with people who write books professionally is that they praalletking else; the trouble with people who do not write books "'essionally is that they are usually unreadable. Mr. Hardy Amies aildt the
, Lop of his profession, which is making clothes for the rich,
do, 11.e is eminently readable. If for that reason alone, Mr. Amies's tveeriPtion of his progress from petticoats to haute couture was well evitetn., Writing, even for a world which is daily stuffing itself silly tr,sql fashion hints, shortcuts to beauty and revelations about Royal i4tusseaus. It is also, from time to time, a funny book; not always to but that is part of the fun. "Models," says Mr. Amies to Is more reflective mood, " must be intelligent in order to know or 14ernember, at least, how to put on the clothes correctly." wo it%• Amies had small, rather Pooterish beginnings. His father ther",;e'd in the LCC, his mother in a Court dressmaker's. Most of 1.1"11-te, they lived near Brentwood where Hardy went to school. for he was a suet* fou as Jessica, and showed an early aptitude to plitneY dress. On the advice of the Daily Express, he then went his ra,i1ce and Germany, where he worked his passage and broadened 134.,111fild in the second half of the nineteen-twenties. After Germany, ao,""llgham where he became a salesman for the accurate Avery 4114°11natie weighing machine. The Avery was mostly sold to butchers 'rh net many butchers bought it. It made Mr. Amics very unhappy. miter's from an empty sky, came his chance. A connection of his LiZet's owned Lachasse. Digby Morton, who designed for iSse, had set up on his own. Hardy writes his Aunt Louie letter describing the connection's wife's dress, the letter falls into C'estaands of the connection's wife, and Hardy gets the job. He could (traw and he had no experience, but he had clothes in the blood. aih remembers dropping the waist three inches; he remembers falling her cing friends (Messrs. Fowler and ffrench of decorating fame); of ,,,,,members a little suit called Panic, and he remembers a good deal "A girl in the workroom who is making a good buttonhole II JENNY NASMYTH
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