The Fashion Committee

by Susan Juby

  To conclude this style diary, here’s something that every young person, fashionable or not, growing up in a difficult family needs to know: keep it together. It will eventually be over. You will turn seventeen or eighteen, and you can move out and start your own life. You do not need to take on the problems of your progenitors. Find something that makes your heart sing and your brain expand, and let it carry you past all the ugliness and over the low spots. Oh, it’s not easy. Certainly not. You will make mistakes, but you will overcome.

  As Jo has gotten to know me better, she says she’s worried that if I’m not careful, I’ll turn into one of those brittle people who will smash into a thousand pieces if someone hits me just the right way. She’s so direct! It’s exhilarating! But she’s not correct. People thought the same thing about Diana Vreeland, and look at the amazing life she had.

  I am strong. And I am stylish beyond all measure.

  Allow me to leave you with a final thought:

  So are you.

  With love,

  Charlie Dean

  acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the fashion design college I briefly attended for helping me to appreciate the artistry and skill that goes into creating clothing and for helping me to understand that I did not have what it takes to be a fashion designer.

  Thanks to my mother, who helped pay for that rather costly misadventure. She let me start buying my own clothes when I was ten and hardly said a thing when I headed off to school in yet another unseemly get-up.

  Many people helped bring this book into being. I’m particularly grateful to my wonderful editors, Kendra Levin, Lynne Missen, and Sharyn November, and my agent, Hilary McMahon. Thanks to production editor Janet Pascal, cover designer Danielle Calotta, designer Dana Li, art director and interior designer Kate Renner, and copyeditor Tricia Callahan. Admiration and gratitude also to the wonderfully talented illustrator, Soleil Ignacio. Deep thanks also to Ken Wright for his support of this book.

  I send every good thought to the people who test read the manuscript: Bill Juby, Susin Nielsen, Andrew Gray, Serah-Marie McMahon, Robin Stevenson, Sara Davidson, and Stephanie Dubinsky. You all made it better. Extra special thanks the various people who gave me technical advice on making clothes and metal art: Anne Adema and Jason Gress and his metalworking students and Jason Ritter. Extra, extra special thanks to my husband, Jim, for everything, always.

  Thanks to anyone who has designed or made a piece of clothing I’ve loved to wear or have admired from afar. Fashion, for all its problems, has always felt like one of the great pleasures in life.

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