Dress Like a Million - On Considerably Less: A Trend-Proof Guide to Real Fashion
by Leah Feldon

Publisher:  Villard Books
ISBN:  0679412891

A smooth combination of modern style sensibility and evergreen fashion mantras like "Pare down and fine-tune your color palette," and "Black looks expensive," this guide to maximizing style while avoiding anything too trendy is aimed at women who are content to let fads pass them by as they plan a timeless wardrobe.

The author of Dressing Rich, Feldon has a crisp, attractive writing style (no small feat in this genre,) and up-to-date strategies that aren't so much about dressing rich, as dressing well, effortlessly.

She describes the fashion trends of the decade and assigns them cute labels like MTV chic and Yeeps (Young Environmentally Enlightened Professionals.) Instead of relying on designers and fashion arbiters for quotes, Feldon, thankfully, peppers her book with examples of real women's style tips.

A proponent of wardrobe strategies like uniform dressing (an approach to building a wardrobe around a limited set of looks,) and jacket dressing, Feldon also urges women to consider the amortization factor of blue-chip buys (divide the cost by the number of times it's worn.) Along with this, there are the obligatory sections on color, fabric, body type, style descriptions, accessorizing, and makeup.

Bottom line: Unpretentious, excellent advice for building a trend-proof wardrobe.

Cynthia Nellis, your Guide for Fashion