Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High-Stakes World of Fashion
Product Description
Designers are great white sharks, and we roam the waters ourselves. We often pretend to like and admire each other, but sometimes we don’t even bother to fake it. The fashion industry is as hardworking, incestuous, and political as any other, and it’s virtually impossible, given the size of designers’ egos, to sincerely wish someone else well, because behind every false tribute is ‘It should have been me.’
So writes Joseph Abboud, who fell in love with style at five. There in the dark of the movie house, he wasn’t just some Lebanese kid with a babysitter. He was the hero, in tweeds and pocket squares. That’s where he learned that clothes represented a better life—a life he wanted, and would grab, for himself. From his blue-collar childhood in Boston’s South End to his spread-collar success as one of America’s top designers, he has forged a remarkable path through the unglamorous business of making people look glamorous.
He transformed American menswear by replacing the traditional stiff-shouldered silhouette with a grown-up European sensuality. He was the first designer to win the coveted CFDA award as Best Menswear Designer two years in a row and the first designer to throw out the opening pitch at Fenway Park. He’s been jilted by Naomi Campbell (who didn’t show up on the runway for his first women’s fashion show) and questioned by the FBI (who did show up in his office right after September 11 because he fit the profile). He’s soared and sunk more than a few times—and lived to tell the tales.
Threads is his off-the-record take on fashion, from the inside out. With breezy irreverence, he looks at guys and taste, divas and deviousness, fabric and texture, and all those ties. He takes us to the luxe bastion of Louis Boston, where he came of age and learned the trade, and to the seductive domain of Polo Ralph Lauren, where he became associate director of menswear design. He reveals the mystique of department-store politics, what’s what at the sample sale, and who copies whom. He explains the process of making great clothes, from conception and sketch to manufacturing and marketing.
Whether he’s traveling by daredevil horse, plunging plane, Paris Métro, or cross-country limo, Abboud is an illuminating guide to a complex world.
Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High-Stakes World of Fashion
Written by admin under Fashion Books.
Gail Cooke
July 31, 2010 at 9:50 am
“Threads” by menswear designer Joseph Abboud is a candid, chatty insider look at the fashion industry. It’s also the portrait of a man who pretty much speaks his mind. Abboud doesn’t mind taking a shot or two at some of his fellow designers, and he’s just as up front in noting his own mistakes.
To call this a rags to riches story may not be completely accurate, but it’s close. The Lebanese-American designer first became aware of what clothing could do for a man as a child in a darkened movie theater when he observed nattily dressed film idols and realized the impression their clothing made.
His childhood and youth were spent in a blue-collar Boston neighborhood. He remembers walking to work in his first Ralph Lauren tie, “a beautiful clock design recently bought for the unimaginable sum of $12.50.” Evidently some of the neighborhood bullies thought Abboud looked too sharp, and took it upon themselves to muss him up.
“Am I going to get my nose broken, my arm, my jaw? I don’t care,” he writes, “All I’m thinking is, `Please, please, God, don’t let me bleed on the tie!’”
His destination that day was a part-time job at Louis Boston. During college he earned money and kept in shape by pedaling a swan boat in the Public Garden. Abboud worked his way up the ladder at Louis to be recognized by Ralph Lauren, where he began in sales and rose to associate director of design.
Eager to begin his own collection the designer was originally thwarted by two unscrupulous financial partners. Today, as we know, the name Joseph Abboud denotes the finest in men’s clothing.
As we originally mentioned, here is a man who speaks his mind, and he does about some of the design field’s superstars – Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Tom Ford. Readers are privy to a look at the wardrobe of his client, John Kerry, and men are cautioned to take a woman with them when they shop. In addition, with impeccable taste Abboud discusses “timely fashion trends vs. timeless fashion.”
Penned in collaboration with Ellen Stern, a writer and editor at GQ, New York, and the New York Daily News, “Threads” is a brisk throughly enjoyable read.
– Gail Cooke
Rating: 4 / 5
Avid Reader
July 31, 2010 at 12:42 pm
You don’t need to be a fashionista to find something of interest in this book, part memoir, part style guide, part insider’s look at a complex industry. Every page has a nugget or two of information, an insight or piece of gossip that keeps you turning. It’s a fast and fun read.
Rating: 5 / 5
Peter Stern
July 31, 2010 at 2:28 pm
If you’re not particularly into the world of high fashion, you may approach this Joseph Abboud bio gingerly. That would be wrong. It’s terrific. From the first sentence to the last this guy’s got some story to tell about a life lived with driving passion — it’s funny and fascinating. Grab it!
Rating: 5 / 5
Carol Kranowitz
July 31, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Man, oh man! What an engrossing, informative, delightful read! I loved the conversational tone, as if “Joey” and I were tete-a-tete (thanks to Ellen Stern’s writing skill, for sure).
I loved learning about buttons and paisleys and the infinite variety of browns. Who knew….? Most of all, I loved being invited to get to know this interesting person, with his art and craft, his vision and passion, and his oh, so elegant, oh, so very beautiful style. What a man!
Rating: 5 / 5
J. J Spina
July 31, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Sometimes Clothing DOES make the man…and…Abboud is a terrific guy. His ties are wonderful. His attitudes about growing up in the fashion biz are insightful and his gift of gab is as good as his gift for garb.
The fact that he likes baseball and bails of multi-colored wool is a bonus.
Rating: 4 / 5