“Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife” By: Anne Fogarty

“I always carry extra white gloves and extra stockings”

These are words of wisdom from fashion designer, author and stylish wife Anne Fogarty circa 1959. Her book “Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife” (With Provocative Notes for the Patient Husband Who Pays the Bills) has recently been re-released so that wives of the new millenia can benefit from her time honored tips.

While much of the advice is so outdated and dusty (for example, you need to build a petticoat wardrobe), there is also fun and sound fashion rules to be found within these pages. This was a book for “ladies that lunch” and “career wives” who took meticulous care of their wardrobe and appearance and would be aghast at the velour track suit wearing wives and mothers of today. I would bet that my grandmother had one and it sat on her vanity next to her face powder and pearls.

Even though the times have changed, there is a great deal of fun for veteran wives, newlyweds adn wives-to-be in “Wife Dressing.” Fogarty’s pet peeves when it comes to dressing aren’t far from my own (underwear straps that show, long tapered “Dragon lady” fingernails, too much makeup in the daytime), while some are downright hilarious (colored wigs, charm bracelets at the theater, and “dungarees” as regular wifely garb).

“Wife Dressing” makes a great Valentine’s Day gift for your fashion-conscious wife (with a good sense of humour) or as a gift for the bride-to-be. Get your copy HERE for great tips on how to dress in a wifely way and other sage advice from fashion designer Anne Fogarty.

Popularity: 7% [?]

“Celebutantes” Buy It!

Celebutantes Book Review:

For all of us outside the realm of the Hollywood elite, Oscar week is just another chance to ogle our fave stars on the red carpet. For Lola Santisi, it’s a trip through Wonderland.

“Celebutantes” by Amanda Goldberg and Ruthana Khalighi Hopper is an insiders ficticious memoir into the insanity of Oscar week seen through the eyes of Hollywood semi-celebs. Psychotic starlets, back-stabbing assistants and a hundred or so name-dropped celebrities are the cast of this crazy 300 page piece of brain candy. In short; if People, Go Fug Yourself and InStyle are your daily reads, then this book needs a space on your nightstand.

The heroine of our novel, Lola Santisi, is a 26-year-old “daughter of Hollywood” who has grown up surrounded by the limelight. Her father is a semi-famous director and is nominated for an Oscar, while she is struggling with her own sense of self and so-called “actorholism.” Lola dates the hottest actors and has an entourage of BFF’s that anyone would envy, including a career-driven agent named Kate, a yoga-obsessed actress named Cricket and an up-and-coming gay designer named Julian. Sounds fabulous, right? Not so much. For her, Oscar week is one crazy downward spiral full of hilarious turns and star studded mania.

Full of sintilating details and tidbits of gossip about celebs, real and imaginary, you’ll be dying to know what’s fact and what’s fiction. Fashion, glitterati, sex, celebrity…it’s all there and I simply couldn’t ask for more. Except if it was turned into a movie or a TV series and came on in between “America’s Next Top Model” and “Gossip Girl.” Okay, that’s all you get…put down the Tolstoy novel you’ve been struggling through for the last month and snatch up this guilty pleasure read and see why Hollywood life isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Enjoy!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Q&A: Essential Pieces for a Preppy Look [Omiru]

A: First a bit of fashion history for you: preppy fashion is derived from White Anglo Saxon College Preparatory School uniforms. Read entire story.

Priv“it” View - Marc Jacob’s [The It Lists]

“Private” comes as a book of photographs housed in an exclusive Louis Vuitton monogrammed case designed by Marc Jacobs. Read entire story.

Mary-Kate Olsen In Nylon [Style IT]

Holiday gifts for Her [Chic Intuition]

Decor Couture: Rosanna [Couture Cult]

Sephora Stunner [Shopaholics Anonymous]

Contest: Recruiting for Tot Snob Fashion Show! [Moms' Buzz]

Don’t forget to enter our Hot Giveaway…TIGI Bedhead “Light Me Up!” Curling Iron and Straigtener

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(This Bestselling Author is Big News…No Bones about It!)

Meg Cabot

Heather Wells’ adventures at New York College are, in part, based upon your own experiences working at NYU. What’s the most outlandish situation you ever had to face as an assistant dorm director?

It would have to be the time someone walked into my office and told me there was a brain on the elevator. And there was…a cow brain. It took the New York City coroner’s office to determine it wasn’t a human brain, though. And we had to shut down the elevator for seven hours and rope it off as a crime scene until we knew for sure.

Is there something about college life that still calls to you?

I think college kids are great, because they’re at that age where they’re still exploring who they are and what they want out of life. They aren’t set in their ways yet, because they don’t know what their ways are! There’s something great about that, and I loved working with kids that age. Every day was different, and I never, ever was bored at work.

How much inspiration do you draw from tabloid tales of fallen teen idols in crafting these wild and witty Heather Wells mysteries?

Well, I have to say, these days, not much. Heather is definitely the anti-celebrity. About the only thing she has in common in with some of her rock ‘n roll peers is a tendency to get a little rounder as she ages. She definitely won’t be shaving her head or checking into Promises any time soon.

What feedback have you received from readers “graduating up” to the Heather Wells and Queen of Babble books?

Quite a lot. So many readers–but by no means not all–of these books started out reading The Princess Diaries and Mediator books, and have graduated to my adult books (although all of them swear they’re still reading the YA books too). Strangely, lot of the adult readers who started on these books also tell me they’ve started reading the YAs as well….

Your two adult series, featuring Heather Wells and Lizzie Nichols, show the heroines heading towards the wedding aisle…any reason you’re getting all matrimonial on us?

Well, it’s a natural progression for these ladies. I think the only real question is which of the many guys in their lives are they going to marry (if any). For some them, THAT is the real mystery.

Please say we’ll see more of Heather?

It seems like she’s got at least one more adventure in her before she ties the knot… Who knows? I certainly don’t think the murder rate in Manhattan is going to go down anytime soon. And as long as there is crime in Fischer Hall, Heather is going to be on it.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Times bestselling author Meg Cabot’s third mystery featuring intrepid amateur sleuth Heather Wells, a former teen singing sensation-turned- assistant residence hall director. After solving two murders at New York College’s “Death Dorm” (a.k.a. Fischer Hall), Heather wants to focus her honed-and-toned (well, more honed-and-toned than her posterior in yoga pants, at least) investigative skills on undercover affairs with her new love interest (and remedial math instructor), Tad Tocco. The relationship is highly illicit – like stolen Dove bars illicit – as teachers and students aren’t allowed to date. Although she’ll never admit it, Heather is really hoping that her longtime crush/upstairs neighbor/good friend (not to mention brother of her slimy singing star ex-boyfriend) Cooper will totally regret telling Heather he doesn’t want to be her rebound guy.

But she’s going to have to bone up on more than her remedial math skills to get through New York College’s newest catastrophe: not only is the graduate student union set to strike – and Death Dorm’s helm is once again headless as the new interim director, Dr. Owen Veatch, is found (by Heather, of course) shot dead at his desk.

Before the crime scene tape is even applied, Heather is swept into a public relations maelstrom, thrown to the media hounds by the university’s new crisis control manager, the blonde, big-haired steel magnolia Muffy Fowler. Heather’s promised both Cooper and the detective in charge of the case that she won’t get involved. Between dodging giant inflatable rats, avoiding union rallies, venturing into the wilds of suburbia to bail out students from local jails, and skirting proposals from both Tad and her father (who wants her to star in a new children’s musical series – kind of like Barney…but cuter, with an edge), one might think she hasn’t got time to meddle in a murder investigation. But Heather has an insatiable appetite for trouble – and this time, she just might be jumping out of the frying pan and straight into the line of fire.

Make sure to check back tomorrow for a Q&A with Meg Cabot

Popularity: 4% [?]