Art of Being a Woman : My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me

Patricia Volk s glittering memoir, written with charm, panache and wit, juxtaposes the lives of two women the iconoclastic fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the author s own mother to tell the story of how young Patricia fashioned herself into a woman.Patricia Volk s mother Audrey was an upper-middle class New Yorker, a great beauty, a perfectionist, and a polished hostess who believed in women doing things the proper way. The iconoclastic Italian fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli, on the other hand, never found a rule she didn t want to break. One of fashion s most radical provocateurs, she was a cultural revolutionary who embodied the daring .For Patricia, who read Schiap s 'scandalous' autobiography, Shocking Life, at a tender age, these two women offered fabulously contrasting lessons in everything from fashion, make-up, lingerie, family and entertaining, to love, sex, superstition and gambling lessons that would stay with her for the rest of her life.Moving seamlessly between the Volks 1950s Manhattan home and Schiap s astonishing life in New York, Rome and Paris (among pals like Dali, Duchamp, Picasso), The Art of Being a Woman weaves Audrey s notions of female domesticity with Schiap s groundbreaking creative vision to tell the witty, wise and utterly delightful story of how a young girl learned that there is more than one way to be a woman.