"One dress. Four women. An amazing destiny. Charlotte Malone is getting married. Yet all is not settled in the heart of Birmingham's chic bridal boutique owner. Charlotte can dress any bride to perfection-except herself. When she discovers a vintage mint-condition wedding gown in a battered old trunk, Charlotte embarks on a passionate journey to discover the women who wore the gown before her. Emily in 1912. Mary in 1939. And Hillary in 1968. Each woman teaches Charlotte something about love in her own unique way. Woven within the threads of the beautiful hundred-year-old gown is the truth about Charlotte's heritage, the power of faith, and the beauty of finding true love"--

Product Details

In Danielle Steel’s epic new novel, the lives of four generations of women in one family span fortune and loss, motherhood, tragedy and victories. From the glamorous San Francisco social scene of the 1920s, through war and the social changes of the ’60s, to the rise of Silicon Valley today, this extraordinary novel takes us on a family odyssey that is both heartbreaking and inspiring, as each generation faces the challenges of their day. The Parisian design houses in 1928, the crash of 1929, the losses of war, the drug culture of the 1960s—history holds many surprises, and lives are changed forever. For richer or for poorer, in cramped apartments and grand mansions, the treasured wedding dress made in Paris in 1928 follows each generation into their new lives, and represents different hopes for each of them, as they marry very different men. From inherited fortunes at the outset to self-made men and women, the wedding dress remains a cherished constant for the women who wear it in each generation and forge a destiny of their own. It is a symbol of their remaining traditions and the bond of family they share in an ever-changing world.

Product Details

Over 300 photographs of wedding dress styles by such fashion luminaries as Oleg Cassini, Christian Lacroix, John Galliano, and others are showcased in this Beautiful guide to the most essential element of the most importatnt day. Artistic sketches and fabric details show endless creative possibilities.

Product Details

Product Details

Pattern sheets are in pocket affixed to page 3 of cover.

Product Details

Features a comprehensive history of wedding fashions, discusses selecting and wearing a contemporary wedding dress, and depicts wedding attire through the ages

Product Details

These finely wrought stories unfold in the Dakotas during the struggling pioneer days and bone-dry landscape of the thirties as well as the verdant years that followed, where the nighttime plains are bathed by softly radiant harvest moons shining down from dazzling northern skies. Young's absorbing narratives begin with the pleasant sense of “Once upon a time...” anticipation, but the firmly sketched details, warm humor, and vivid characterizations reveal an unanticipated and satisfying realism. The haunting title story is about a beautiful and tragic pioneer woman and her wedding dress; her gown takes on a life of its own and turns into an enduring symbol for the grace and compassion of homesteading women on the plains. In “Bank Night,” a hired hand working during the midst of the Depression wins $250 at the movies, careening him into a single night of notoriety that becomes a legend in its time. “The Nights of Ragna Rundhaug” tells the tale of a woman who wants only to be left alone with her white dog, Vittehund, and her crocheting but instead is propelled into a life of midwifery “because there was no one else to do it.” The babies have predilection for arriving during blizzards and always at night, when she must be transported across the dark plains by frantic husbands who have fortified themselves with strong drink and headstrong horses. All the stories in The Wedding Dress are linked by the enigmatic Nordic characters who people them and by the skill with which Young draws them. Emotions run so deep that they are seldom able to surface; when they do the interaction is extraordinarily luminous, both for the characters themselves and for the fortunate reader. The Wedding Dress is for all readers, young and old.

Product Details

Novelist and poet Howe suggests new and fruitful ways of thinking about both the artist's role and the condition of doubt. In these original meditations on bewilderment, motherhood, imagination, and art-making, Howe takes on conventional systems of belief and argues for another, brave way of proceeding. In the essays "Immanence" and "Work and Love" and those on writers such as Carmelite nun Edith Stein, French mystic Simone Weil, Thomas Hardy, and Ilona Karmel--who were particularly affected by political, philosophical, and existential events in the twentieth century--she directly engages questions of race, gender, religion, faith, language, and political thought and, in doing so, expands the field of the literary essay. A richly evocative memoir, "Seeing Is Believing," situates Howe's own domestic and political life in Boston in the late '60s and early '70s within the broader movement for survival and social justice in the face of that city's racism. From publisher description.

Product Details

Product Details

My Wedding Dress explores the wedding outfit as a touchstone garment in women’s lives. In the tradition of Dropped Threads, this collection offers twenty-six true stories from well-known writers and fresh new literary voices. These are intimate stories about relationships; not just those between men and women, but between women and their mothers, friends and children. And, of course, with their wedding attire – a relationship that is sometimes simple, sometimes complex, but always fascinating in what it tells us about individual lives and aspirations. Some of the tales are humorous – the bride whose skin is dyed fuchsia on her wedding night or the woman whose shopping-savvy aunt takes her to New York’s garment district. Some are romantic – the woman who puts on her dress eight years after her wedding only to be caught by her husband when he comes home early from work or the quickie immigration wedding that turned into the real thing. Some are devastating – the bride who loses her mother to illness only days before her wedding or the woman whose mother tells of being kidnapped by her future husband. And some are revealing – the woman who wears her first wedding dress for her initiation ceremony into a convent and her second to marry her beloved; the dress that waited patiently in a shop window and then hidden in a box on a closet shelf; the same-sex wedding at age eighty; the thrift shop wedding dress that gets used for everything but a wedding. All are honest, personal and profoundly moving. As Anne Laurel Carter explains in her introduction, the pieces “fell easily” into four categories, so that’s how the book is organized. “Something Old” looks at how traditions like honouring one’s ancestors affected wedding dress choices, from a grandmother’s gift to a father’s old leather jacket, but also at how such traditions can play a role in ways you least expect. The pieces in “Something New” focus on dreams for the future, whether that means breaking away from the expectations of one’s family or choosing/creating a wedding dress (and a future) on your own. In “Something Borrowed,” writers tell of all the reasons behind borrowing (or trying to borrow!) dresses, for whatever reason, and “Something Blue . . . Or Peach . . . Or Striped . . . Or Floral . . .” looks at exactly that–the non-traditional choices women have made, and why. These stories re-create the range of emotions that are invested in dresses and wedding days: confidence, optimism, hesitation, fear, fury and hope. When you work away at the seams, even the simplest of wedding outfits reveals all manner of memories and meanings. And whether you’ve been married or not, the stories in My Wedding Dress will have you looking back with new eyes on your own life, and exploring what the phrase “my wedding dress” means to you. Contributors to My Wedding Dress: Joanne Arnott Anita Rau Badami Adwoa Badoe Sandra Campbell Lorna Crozier Rebecca Cunningham Laurie Elmquist Alisa Gordaneer Jessica Ruth Harris Kathleen Boyle Hatcher Rosemary Hood Michele Landsberg Mary T. Malone Jenny Manzer Ami McKay Jane Munro Margaret Goudie Parsons Gianna Patriarca Elyse Pomeranz Edeet Ravel Kerri Sakamoto Ilana Stanger-Ross Darla Tenold Jamie Zeppa Foreword by Stevie Cameron Afterword by Amy Cameron Edited by and with contributions from Susan Whelehan and Anne Laurel Carter

Product Details