I’m a big fan of fashion memoirs because each individual’s story provides a different and unique take on fashion and style. So, I’ve been looking forward to reading stylist Patricia Field’s memoir (written with Rebecca Paley), Pat in the City: My Life of Fashion, Style and Breaking All the Rules (Dey Street Books).
Pat in the City does not disappoint. Field is known for styling the fashions on hit TV shows Sex and The City and Emily in Paris, among others, and creating iconic looks such as the tutu-as-skirt.
Born and raised in New York, Field, now 81, is of Greek decent. She was the eldest daughter of immigrant parents who ran their own dry cleaning business. A rebel from the start, Field created her own style early in life, combining her mother’s preferred Pringle cashmere sweaters with a Burberry (popped collar) trench coat and boots. “My style, inside and out, was not girly girl but cool and fierce,” she explains. This was the beginning of her penchant for mixing contrasting looks, something that later would set her apart in the world of costuming.
In eleven chapters Pat in the City takes the reader through Field’s childhood (surrounded by her three unmarried aunts) to her first retail shops where in the 70s and 80s she created a haven for club kids and drag queens. Each of her first commercial costuming successes – Sex in the City, The Devil Wears Prada, and Emily in Paris – get their own chapters filled with behind-the-scene tidbits. For example – early on in costume discussions, Sarah Jessica Parker, who played Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City, declared that she would not wear hose, no matter the season or the weather. Field explains that historically for women hose were essential. Even as late at 1998 when SATC premiered, women, in the workforce especially, were expected to cover their legs. SJP saying no hose, was remarkable. (Later Meryl Streep, who played Amanda Priestly in The Devil wears Prada went the opposite direction announcing that bare legs were not for her and she would be wearing hose.)
I learned a lot about Field that surprised me. I didn’t know that she was nominated for an Oscar for her costuming work on The Devil Wears Prada and that she designed a line for Payless Shoes. I didn’t know that she has closed all her retail stores and now runs her own fashion gallery called ARTFashion in Manhattan.
Another pleasant surprise is the book itself, which is quite stylish and heavy with more than 250 coated pages. There are many colorful illustrations, photos, and photo collages. The images of Field, her family, and other people in her life help complete the story for the reader, plus they’re just fun to look at.
I really enjoyed Pat in the City and I recommend it, particularly to fans of her work, but also for anyone who is interested in costuming, fashion, and style.
(Thank you Dey Street Books for providing a review copy to ODFL.)
OverDressed for Life 