The Couture Secrets of Shape

Very rewarding in learning from the art of craftsmanship

This book is an amazing gem for those who appreciate James’ work and want to have a more pragmatic and thoughtful understanding of his methods. The authors and editors have written a functional 412 page book that is also beautifully designed and almost perfectly cross-referenced, indexed, and sourced. All writing on fashion and design should be this thorough and delightful.So first things first: If you are not a designer specifically, don’t have a fundamental understanding of shape and construction, are only marginally curious about who James was, what he did, or are just looking for a coffee table picture-book of one amazing dress after another… this is probably not the book for you. Go get „Charles James: Beyond Fashion“ by Koda, Reeder, et al (ISBN 978-0-300-20436-0). You will probably be happier and have a better experience, IMHO. Although this book is physically beautiful, its beauty isn’t the main draw.This book is for those who want a glimpse into the life of the man himself as well as some of his methods of design. It is good for established designers who’ve only had academic design instruction (or are in a bit of a rut) and it is good for the home sewist of any level trying to reach out and touch other planes of the art and artisanship of sewing, design, and aesthetics. It outlines James’ flat-pattern work as well as his more insane and abstracted pieces. With James, this is a tricky balance - on one hand he can be portrayed as a crank designer whose genius is absolutely up for debate and on the other he can totally be deified as a genius that mere mortals are incapable of understanding. These extremes don’t do anyone any good when they have a desire to *know* about the reality of the the man as an artist and designer. This book handles James well, and that is a wily feat.It is outlined in 3 parts, and I’d like to take some time to go through them as the handful of 5-star reviews for a US $50+ book that say „I LOVE CHARLES JAMES AND LOVE THIS BOOK!!!1!“ left me wondering if I was really going to get any meat out of it at all. I did get my meat, and want to make sure you get yours too, so here goes:Part 1: The Sound of Shape and DesignPart 1 deals with James’ life at the Chelsea hotel and finishes with reprints from the unpublished manual that he was commissioned to write and never finished. I’ve been wanting to see that work for years and this was almost exactly what I was looking for. Besides the text itself, you really get the sense of a designer trying to reconstruct his life and ideas in a bit of a rush with assistants and apprentices bustling back and forth to get the work underway. You can see the images of garments reconstructed in less than ideal circumstances and all of the typos in the text. Nevertheless, if you are familiar with James, pattern making, and design you will see exactly what he is trying to convey even if you haven’t thought of it before. It really is too bad that the book wasn’t published during his lifetime with the appropriate editing and footnotes, but Homer Layne is a saint for preserving this part of our design culture and offering it up here. This section also goes into the Eiderdown jacket with images from the V&A storage and some commentary around it and its place in fashion history.Part 2: The Design Practice of a Fashion GeniusPart 2 goes into the patterns and practices of James with both vintage and modern examples of the work and the technicality of the pieces. You get his philosophy of shape, how he approached muslins, and pattern making insights into the Butterfly Blouse, Möbius Scarf, Long-Front cape, Scarf Dress, and Grossgrain Cape, as well as thoughts and technical details about his Shoulder Shell and its use. You get pattern specs and commentary for the $20K sleeve, The Dolman-Sleeve Coat, The Kimono Coat, the Arc-sleeve Coat, the Bubble Top, the figure-8 wrap pants, shaped culottes (among other things), as well as an explanation of his hip and skirt expander. Layne and Mink also cover his concepts of „Platitudes“ (which not enough people understand or know about) that can be so fun and rewarding to work with.For my money, Part 2 is the real meat of the book - you get a fairly thorough sense of his concept of „Metamorphology“ from both a historical root (Goethe is very rightly referenced here) as well as from a practical point of use. This is one of the places that one has to tread carefully because it can easily veer into „crank-theory“ territory and the authors an editors seem to understand this and respect James in their work with his ideas.I would have gladly bought the book for this section ALONE. Seriously. With very little expansion this could be three or four books itself.Part 3: The Legacy of Charles James’ Perfect Jennie Dress FormSection 3 is going to be really useful for those wanting to understand how James worked out his dress forms or those wanting to make one of their own. It is probably the least useful section for the casual reader, but should really be understood by those studying James’ work or wanting to work beyond the ridiculous duct tape dress forms or „customized“ soft foam forms of the home sewing market. With the Introduction by James himself, Dorothea Mink walks you through building a professional (and perfect) dress form and understanding the theory and concepts behind it. It is a thing of beauty to see this section come together, but it probably won’t be as interesting to the average reader as it is to someone sunk up to the eyes in the design and sewing universe.There are a handful of quarter-scale patterns inside the back cover: a basic platitude, a dress form cover, a hip extender set, and a set for the shoulder shell.If you are a self-taught designer of any level, this book will help you commune with someone long dead who came from a similar place; if you are an academically trained designer, this may very well help you start thinking outside the concepts of traditional flat patterns or basic draping.I was hesitant to buy this because there wasn’t very much written about this book specifically, but I am very glad I bought it for my workrooms and plan on introducing some of the concepts in focused workshops throughout the next year.As an aside not necessarily related to this book, I think there is more than a little overlap between Charles James in Fashion and Edgar Miller in decorative arts and interiors in terms of what they did for the 20th century. They are wildly unrelated to each other in terms of the things they produced, but they occupy the same spaces in my mind about their work and legacies.

Excellent beautiful book. Full of generous archive drawings and sketches giving a wealth of information about James’ design techniques and philosophy. a real gem to pour over again and again. I am delighted with this purchase.

amazing book with patterns details, which is very useful.some of them are not clear but you can learn a lot if you already get some basic knowledge of pattern making.

Excited to learn more of the details of James's techniques. Wonderful.