This is a charming little book of horrific clothing, though disappointingly short. I have the sense that Wright could have done so much more with most of the subjects. Still I enjoyed what I got, perfunctory as some of the entries seemed. Alas, the format didn't seem to give enough scope to Wright's often gruesome sense of humor.

The impression one gets is that history is one long parade of people dying horribly because of their fashion choices, most of them ending up as human torches. Crinolines, that staple of mid-Victorian fashion, killed about 300 women a year in England, mostly by going up in flames. But that wasn't their only danger.

"Wearers who didn't go up in flames could be carried away by wind gusts that caught beneath their crinolines as they (ill-advisedly) walked along cliff tops."

That certainly puts an unintentionally hilarious spin on stalking the cliffs, wailing for your lost love. Being carried off like an enormous, beribboned balloon isn't exactly the height of emo.

The illustrations are charming, Edward Gorey-esque little horrors filled with doomed, but weirdly bemused and often passive people, many with smoke or flame shooting out of their clothing or hair.

Overall, fun, but nothing I'd reread. ( )

Killer Fashion from Jennifer Wright is a fun, attractive, and informative little book. Like many others I would have enjoyed a little more though I am not sure what type of more. This isn't meant to be a collection of in-depth essays on each fashion item so I don't think she needed to go deeper. While I would have liked more items I also don't know how well one can keep coming up with quirky little verses for too many more items. So I guess I may be wishing for something that could easily have made the book less enjoyable.

The informative part of the book is as much fun as the verse and the drawings. A lot of the information isn't so much completely new (though quite a bit is) but in that category of information which contains all the interesting things we once read or heard but have since forgotten about. Having these types of tidbits brought up is almost like a nostalgic event each time. I actually called an old friend because one entry reminded me of a course where the topic was discussed and a friend and I had chatted about it over coffee later in the day. I had since forgotten the information and lost touch with my friend. Now I have touched base with an old friend thanks to a fun little entry in this book.

I would recommend this to readers who like short fun books of, for lack of a better term, trivia. If you're the inquisitive type you may find yourself looking up some additional details, that is not a bad thing, I don't think this book was intended to be a comprehensive source for such information so it is not a weakness of the book that you will need to actually look something up for yourself beyond the basic description given here. In fact, some of us consider such "work" part of the fun of trivia type books. I also think this would make an ideal gift for anyone into either such books or into fashion.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

Full review to come! ( )