Book Review: The Dress: 100 Iconic Moments in Fashion by Megan Hess

Earlier this year, I decided to collect some of Megan Hess’ books. The first book I purchased was Illustrated World of Couture, but my second and third was New York: Through the Fashion Eye and The Dress: 100 Iconic Moments in Fashion.

The book was purchased at the same time as New York: Through the Fashion Eye. Even though I’m happy to own both books, they, along with other books I ordered, suffered water damage. I’m not sure how that happened because it didn’t rain anywhere near where the tracking said the package went, but it was damaged. It wasn’t damaged enough to force me to return the books, which is why I kept all of them. Still, the water damage can be seen on the top right hand corner of some of the pages. I didn’t take pictures of the damaged pages, but if you, for any reason, are curious about why I didn’t photograph certain pages and use them in this post, that is probably why.

The front of the book looks like this…

The book is about 100 dresses that are “iconic”. They are iconic for various reasons, but most are known to the general public.

 

The book is split into different sections. They are Designers,

The section dedicated to designers focuses on designer dresses. The dresses in this chapter are sometimes made famous because of the people who wore them, but are also well known because of the designers that designed them. They include Armani…

And Dior…

The second section is film. This section focuses on dresses well known from the movies. They include Marilyn Monroe’s pink dress from the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes…

The third section focuses on Icons. The dresses picked for this section show a signature look for a certain person. One of those people is Brigitte Bardot…

The next section is Weddings and, as the name suggests, it features famous wedding dresses. They include Cathrine, Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress…

The next section is music and shows the famous looks of women in music. I’m very happy to see Cher in this section…

as well as Debbie Harry from the band Blondie…

The last section is dedicated to the Oscars and features well known dresses worn to the Oscars. They include Grace Kelly’s Edith Head dress…

And Nicole Kidman’s 2009 dress…

Overall, this book is fun to look at and read. The illustrations are beautiful and include sketches from certain parts of the dress unable to be seen or accessories that were worn with the dress. The written portion of the book is easy to read, but contains plenty of information about the dress and what made it so memorable. The cover of the book is beautiful and has metallic gold details on it. It is smaller in size than other coffee table books (It is the size of a novel) but it is a great decorative book that would also be an enjoyable read.

The only complaint I have about the book is one that many may have: There are some dresses that I believed would be included in the book, but weren’t. I know there are dresses included in the book that I don’t think should’ve, but it didn’t bother me as much as someone thought it would be. Seeing what Megan Hess’s top 100 picks for most memorable dresses is interesting and educational. Also, this book was published in 2014. Because of this, and how fast fashion changes, I can see someone reading this book will wonder why certain dresses post 2014 were left out. I don’t think there needs to be a new edition to this book with an updated 100 dress list.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a coffee table book in smaller size. I also recommend this book to any fans of Megan Hess’s illustrations, fashion, specifically dresses, and is looking for a book that is both beautiful to display and enjoyable to read.

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!