The Secret Lives of Dresses - Softcover

McKean, Erin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 044655572X ISBN 13: 9780446555722

Publisher: 5 Spot, 2011

Synopsis

When her grandmother has a stroke, Dora returns to the small town where she grew up to take over her family's vintage clothing store -- and meets a handsome contractor. Is he interested in Dora? Or is he working from a different blueprint?



Dora has always taken the path of least resistance. She went to the college that offered her a scholarship, majoring in "vagueness studies," and wears whatever shows the least dirt. She falls into a job at the college coffee shop and has a crush on her flirty boss, Gary.

But just when she's about to test Gary's feelings, Mimi, the grandmother who raised her, suffers a stroke. Dora rushes back to Forsyth, NC, and finds herself running her grandmother's vintage clothing store while her grandmother recovers -- andmeets Mimi's adorable contractor, Conrad.



The store has always been a fixture in Dora's life; though she grew up more of a jeans-and-sweatshirt kind of girl, before she even knew how to write, Mimi taught her that a vintage 1920s dress could lift a woman's spirit. But why has Mimi started writing down -- and giving away -- stories of the dresses in her shop?



Amidst personal and professional turmoil, can Dora can trade her boring clothes for vintage glamour and her boring life for one she actually wants?

About this title

About the Author

Erin McKean is the blogger behind A Dress A Day, the inspiration for this novel. Her writing has been featured in many media outlets from The New York Times Magazine to Foreign Affairs. She currently works as the editor of VERBATIM, and was previously at OUP.

Reviews

Blogger McKean's retro fashion-forward coming-of-age debut follows Dora Winston as she sashays toward a degree in "vagueness studies" while engaged in a fruitless flirtation with her coffee shop boss. She's got no idea what to do with her life, and then her adored grandmother, Mimi, has a stroke, and Dora is whisked back to Mimi's vintage clothing store, where she learns more about Mimi, thanks to the secret (and ploddingly overwritten) stories Mimi has stashed away on pieces of paper stuck in the pockets of her most intriguing inventory. Flashbacks flesh out Mimi's wisdom and wit, while store workers Gabby and Maux complete the trilogy of strong and funny women who run the business and help Dora find her way. The prose hovers somewhere below lackluster, however, and Dora's journey is as comfortable and unsurprising as a favorite sweater. (Feb.)
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College junior Dora drops everything, including her iPod, to rush home after hearing that the grandmother who raised her, her beloved Mimi, has had a stroke. Once there, she runs Mimi’s, a vintage clothing store, to honor her love for the hospitalized owner. Romance abounds in this fun novel set in western North Carolina. The story gets its suspense from Dora’s crushes, the dippy Gary she left back at college and the newly met Con. Whom will she choose? And, of course, there are the greedy relatives who try to take over the store. But she has wonderful friends to support her as well as a considerable amount of pluckiness of her own. This book originated on McKean’s blog,A Dress a Day, which is currently archiving volumes about the secret lives of 18 dresses from the dresses’ points of view. Those “biographies,” given to the new owners of vintage outfits, are amusing and intriguing additions to the plot. Romance readers and fans of small-town fiction will love this positive and enjoyable book. --Ellen Loughran

Edition details

• Publisher: 5 Spot
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 044655572X
• ISBN 13: 9780446555722
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 292