A Life in Frocks

Book excerpt: A Life in Frocks is about the 'divine obsession' - a woman's love for clothes. In particular, it is a personal, entertaining, joyousùand seductiveùexploration of the significance of clothes, filtered through one woman's life-long sartorial infatuation. For as long as she can remember, Kelly Doust has been passionate about clothes. They are her first, and most enduring, love affair to date. Like the vast majority of women, she adores the playfulness of fashion and its endless ability to transform. She loves the ritual and drama of getting dressed, assuming different identities in different outfits and exploring the many facets of her personality. She buys far too many glossy magazines, and puzzles over how she can spend half her life shopping and yet still find herself with nothing to wear. Over the years, clothes have comforted her, given her confidence, lured lovers, made her invisible, secured jobs, aged her and given back her youth. And yes, they have betrayed her. A beautifully illustrated mix of memoir, philosophies and fantasies, A Life in Frocks is a book for those who love clothes and find fashion beguiling, fickle and fabulous.