The Hidden Facts of Fashion: A visual book reveals the little known facts and fascinating stories of fashion

by Fashionary

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, Art

192 pages, Hardcover

Published November 16, 2019

Reviews

[mishi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is for you if you are looking for light, fun, and surprising fashion factoids. It is cute and attractive coffee table book.

This book is *not* for you if you are looking for a book that references sources and research to support the fashion ‘facts’ (some of which are just theories).

This book was not for me. I was expecting a book with more substance and better execution. I expected this because Fashionary’s other books seem to be quite technical and geared towards people in the fashion industry.

Here are my disappointments:

- Many of the images that accompany each fact seem like clip art chosen off of Google. They hardly offer any support for the information on the neighboring page other than looking pretty next to it.

For example, pages 55-56 describe the attire of ninjas. The supporting image is of two human eyes pasted onto a black background. This does absolutely nothing to support the text. I would have liked to see an authentic ninja outfit.

- The book sometimes does not explain what a new term or idea is.

For example, on page 39 the book describes a certain attire is known as ‘dead peoples wearing,’ but doesn’t explain what that means. Does it mean corpses are buried in that attire? Does it mean ghosts wear that attire? Unclear.

- The writing is weirdly naïve at times.

For example, the second line of the book is ‘While many of us spend time staying up to speed with the latest fashion trends and runway shows...’ This just isn’t true. And it is such a strange statement to start the book with. Someone keeps up to speed with those if they are heavily involved in the fashion industry. Most people don’t. The audience of this book is people who do not know much about the history of fashion. Therefore, it is unlikely that they are truly keeping up to date on the latest trends and runway shows. This made for a weak introduction, in my opinion.

- There are also several typos in the book.

I could have seen past one of these problems, but all of them together was enough to make me feel like this book was ‘just ok’. For this reason, I have returned the book.

[Nguyễn Thùy Dương · Rating 5 out of 5]

Không hẳn là bí ẩn 👕

Tại sao "skinny" lại là mốt?
Điểm khác biệt giữa vintage và retro là gì?
Sao không viết là Tea Shirt mà phải là T-shirt?

Một cuốn tổng hợp những câu hỏi vì sao và vì đâu mà áo quần nó lại như thế, thậm chí cả những tips để bảo vệ chúng (khỏi cháy nhà nữa, thiệt).
Thời trang hiện ngày nay chịu ảnh hưởng rất lớn từ phong cách của phương Tây, vì thế những điều trong sách liên quan khá nhiều đến lịch sử Châu Âu cũng như Chiến tranh thế giới thứ hai.

Ai tò mò về ý nghĩa hay lịch sử của thời trang có thể tìm đọc cuốn này, miễn là biết tiếng Anh và trên 10 tuổi là đọc được rồi.

[Ana Grau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's super easy to read and it has surprised me a lot with tones of small facts that I didn't know about fashion. It's fun to see and understand where our garments come from and why we started using them.

As the other Fashionary books I read, I really recommend this one if you are really into fashion and want to know more about it.

[Am Y · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the presentation, layout, design, and feel of this book, but it was completely unreadable, unfortunately, due to the poor language. You have mistakes ranging from wrong grammar (e.g. they has, it are, etc) to completely incomprehensible sentences. That's how bad it was. It would have benefited greatly from a good editor's skills. The topics covered were actually interesting (e.g. why some tops have buttons facing a certain way; why jeans have that small "pocket within a pocket", etc), but I was totally miserable having to plough through all that horribly mangled and broken English.

[Sophia Exintaris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very poorly made and edited. Good trivia. Poor english. Even the page numbers are in the wrong place (in lower left corner or all pages). And there was next to no layout work done. This looks like a high school project. Not up to the standards set by other FASHIONARY publications.

[Ivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Sufficient grammatical errors to the point that it was distracting. Overall, though, enjoyed the quick read. Wish more could be touched up on (in depth).

[Arnoldas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining and quite a light read on fashion industry and its history.
The book is filled with facts regarding many various aspects of fashion, although at times it is hard to believe the authors that so called "facts" are reputable as the sources of the data is unknown or unclear. Additionally, illustrations found through out the book can be confusing as they do not compare to the fact which is in conjunction with the given fact.
Regardless of the issues described above, book is still a fun/simple read for anyone having even the slightest interest in style.
Favorite main idea - early waterproof jackets were made out of seal/whale intestines.

[Jullmua]

The book is very surface-level, like a coffee table book. All the topics are one-page stories — most of which you already know, from social media, a fashion degree, or just general knowledge. It’s fun to have them assembled in one book, but it could have been done deeper and smarter. Some topics are quite sexist and strange in general. The images are really dull, which is a shame, because the cover has such a smart design — the title is hidden until you tilt it. It had potential, and it is fun — but nothing more than that.

[Leon Zuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a pretty interesting book about some interesting fashion Facts with a beautiful design.
The information you'll get out of this book aren't world changing but there will be things you had never heard of. As I said the book is very nice designed and the cover has a very nice effect if you turn it to the side.
Nothing to big but still a very cool book if you want some extra knowledge about fashion.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sin más. La edición está bien, pero podría ser más bonita. Los dibujos que aparecen son cada uno “de su padre y de su madre” y no hay una coherencia visual, hecho que para un libro sobre la moda hace que pierda puntos. Las curiosidades están bien, pero se queda mucho en la superficie. Me ha faltado más historia y más back-up.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Libro scoperto con una pubblicità su instagram, venduto come un saggio che approfondisce il mondo della moda, è invece una collezione di "fun facts". Carino e interessante, ma pur sempre sotto le aspettative e troppo caro per quel che offre.

[tori olegario · Rating 5 out of 5]

someone recently told me i know a lot of random stuff about fashion (i go to fashion school so i don’t know why this was such a revelation for him) so i bought this book solely to test my knowledge

it’s safe to say i barely know anything and the term “fake it till you make it” is very real

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very surface level facts and titbits, and like other reviewers mentioned, no sources for any facts given.

This book also has multiple glaringly obvious grammar/language errors and typography mistakes, disappointing considering the polished, professional-looking cover.

[Radka Hrivnáková · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super knižka plna zaujímavosti o móde a oblečení.

[Marenka · Rating 3 out of 5]

It works as a nice inspiration to find out about different fashion topics.

[Carmelo Galicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

cool book, learned some whys and whens on some fashion facts

[Carchu Lucero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro es como ver tiktok. Los facts duran una página cada uno tiene colores imágenes y datos muy interesantes. Loved it pero siento q ni cuenta como lectura

[yekai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick & easy read about some fun facts about fashion. Not too in-depth but the design & typography was kinda the whole spiel of how the book was attractive

[Partof Shan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun to read :)
The tips in the end are very useful...